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Pan-Germany 



The Disease and Cure 



By Andre Ch6radame 




Reprinted from several issues of The Atlantic Monthly 



The Atlantic Monthly Press 

Three Park Street, Boston, Mass. 



sisr 



Copyright, xoi7 
THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY COMPANY 
THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY PRESS, Inc. 



OhC 20 1917 



©CLA48106 



[No student outside of Germany itself has studied 
the Pan-German scheme in all its details more 
thoroughly than the distinguished French publicist, 
Andr^ Cheradame. For more than twenty years he 
has devoted all his energies and resources, physical and 
intellectual alike, to a vigorous and exhaustive inves- 
tigation of the origin and progress of the monstrous 
conspiracy which threatens to overwhelm the liberties 
of the entire world. His books, long unheeded, now 
read like prophecies. The papers reprinted in this 
pamphlet originally appeared in The Atlantic Monthly, 
where they attracted very great interest. They are 
now published in inexpensive form, so that every 
American who desires a clear understanding of the 
meaning of this war may have a chance to read them. 
To careful readers we recommend M. Cheradame's 
more elaborate books, "The Pan-German Plot Un- 
masked' ' and ' * Pan-Germanism and the United States, ' * 
published by Charles Scribner's Sons. 

A new series of articles by this author will appear in 
The Atlantic Monthly for 1918.] 



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Pan-Germany 
The Disease and Cure 



CHAPTER I 

How Cheaply Germany Has Fought 
THE War 

At the beginning of 191 6, I said in my book The 
Pan-German Plot Unmasked, — 

' Finally, when all negotiations for an armistice 
have fallen flat and Germany's situation has be- 
come still more critical, we shall see Berlin play 
her trump card. Protests against territorial an- 
nexations will become insistent beyond the Rhine, 
secretly sanctioned by the German government, 
which will finally say to the Allies: ''Let this 
slaughtering of one another cease ! We are willing 
to listen to reason; we resign our claims to those 
territories of yours now occupied by our armies. 
The game has been played to a draw; so let us 
treat for peace on that basis." 

'On the day when this proposition is put for- 
ward, the Allies will find themselves face to face 
with the most subtle move yet made by Berlin — 
the most insidious German snare. Then, above 
all things, must the steadfastness, the perspicacity. 



PA N -GERM A N Y 



and the unity of the Allies be most brilliantly 
made manifest. The trick of the * ' drawn game, ' ' 
if successful, would involve an overwhelming tri- 
umph for Germany and an irreparable tragedy for 
the Allies and for the liberty of the world.' 

Only a few months after these lines were print- 
ed, the prophecy began to be fulfilled more and 
more completely. Every possible step has been 
taken by Germany to bring about peace on the 
basis of a draw. The slogan, ' Peace without an- 
nexations or indemnities,' was coined to that end. 
At first the Allies believed that this formula origi- 
nated in Russia; as a matter of fact, however, it 
was worked out in Berlin and then suggested to 
the Russian Socialists through secret agents whom 
Germany has successfully established in the Pet- 
rograd Soviet. These Socialists, doubtless well- 
meaning, but over-fond of theories and always 
ready to embrace the wildest Utopian schemes, — 
ignorant, too, of all realities, as has been shown by 
the steady aggravation of the general situation in 
Russia since they came into power with the Rev- 
olution, — have declared enthusiastically for the 
* peace without annexations and indemnities.' As 
there exist also in the other Allied countries groups 
of Socialists with a stronger grip on theories than 
on facts, and also because Allied sympathies natur- 
ally rallied strongly to the support of the Russian 
Revolution, the formula, ' peace without annexa- 
tions or indemnities,' thanks to its apparent 



THE DISEASE AND CURE 

origin, has unquestionably made serious inroads 
on a certain section of Allied public opinion. 

The Stockholm manoeuvres, engineered by all 
the powerful and varied means at the disposal of 
German propagandists, were designed to estab- 
lish this formula as the fixed basis of all peace 
negotiations. When the astuteness of the Allied 
governments prevented the fulfillment of this 
attempt within the period desired by Berlin, the 
Vatican was persuaded through Viennese agencies 
to throw its influence on the side of peace as deter- 
mined by Germany. 

As a matter of fact, the Pope's peace proposals, 
while not embodying the exact terms of the Kai- 
ser's formula, involved, in the last analysis, prac- 
tically the same essential results. Berlin, there- 
fore, in order to assure unceasing discussion of her 
formula, — a discussion tending at least to bring 
about an armistice, which would split up and mor- 
ally disarm the Allies, thus making it possible for 
her to deal with them separately, — outdid her- 
self in mobilizing toward one end the most widely 
divergent forces, from the Maximalist anarchists 
of Petrograd to the most hidebound reactionaries 
of the Sacred College. The extent, the vigor, and 
the persistence of the amazing ' pacifist' offensive 
launched by Germany were such that the expres- 
sions 'peace without indemnities or annexations,' 
'drawn game,' 'white peace,' ' paix boiteuse,' have 
become as current in the Allied countries as if 



PA N -GERM A NY 



they had some established connection with reality. 
This is entirely contrary to the fact : with the best 
intentions in the world, peace without annexations 
or indemnities, as things stand now, is impossible. 
There can he no ^ white peace,' no ^ drawn game,' 
no ^ paix hoiteuse.' 

To tell the truth, a section of Allied opinion has 
become befuddled by these formulae of Berlin, 
whose function is to accomplish in the moral order 
the same asphyxiating action as that of the gases 
employed on the battlefield by the German Gen- 
eral Staff. The result of this moral intoxication is 
that important groups of the Allies begin to juggle 
with words and lose sight of facts. As the natural 
outcome of giving serious thought to impossibili- 
ties, grave errors are made in weighing the present 
situation, with an attendant weakening of the 
joint action of the Allied democracies. It is im- 
perative, therefore, that the pursuit of Utopias, 
leading only to disaster, be abandoned, and that 
we return to those realities which alone can lead 
to victory and the establishment of a durable 
peace. 

If the formula 'peace without annexations and 
indemnities' has been allowed to insinuate itself 
into the general discussion, it is only because great 
numbers of the Allied peoples fail to understand 
the overwhelming advantages which Germany, by 
means of the war, has been able to assure to her- 
self for the present and the future. The object of 



THE DISEASE AND CURE 

this paper is to show just what these advantages 
are, and at the same time to brand the utter hy- 
pocrisy of the slogan, 'peace without annexations 
and indemnities,' which, regarded even in the 
most favorable light, would allow Germany to 
make off with immense booty, leaving the Allies 
to face the incalculable losses incurred by them in 
a war launched by their adversary. 

The significance of the low rate 
oj German exchange 

The continual fall of German exchange is re- 
garded by many of the Allies as proof of the pro- 
gressive and irremediable impoverishment of Ger- 
many. When, for instance, the mark drops 47 per 
cent in Switzerland, while the franc has depreci- 
ated only 13 per cent, Frenchmen are for the most 
part inclined to believe that the war has affected 
the two countries in relatively the same propor- 
tion ; they then conclude that Germany's financial 
situation is infinitely worse than that of France. 
In reality, such a comprehensive conclusion can- 
not be reached simply through the rise and fall of 
exchange, which reflects only certain special as- 
pects of the financial situation of a country. 

Among the various causes affecting exchange, 
there are two principal ones. The first is moral. 
It cannot be denied that the fluctuation of ex- 
change responds to foreign confidence. If German 
exchange is low, it implies, to a certain extent at 



PA N - GERM A NY 



least, the existence of a universal conviction that 
in the long run Germany cannot hold out against 
her formidable ring of adversaries. As a result, 
there is no great demand for the currency of a 
state whose credit, it is thought, must finally col- 
lapse. It should be noted, however, that the rea- 
son for this fall of exchange is only a moral evalua- 
tion anticipating a probable outcome; it is not 
due to a mathematically certain estimate of what 
Germany now stands to win or lose as a result of 
the war. 

The second great factor affecting exchange, on 
the other hand, is based on present realities which 
are susceptible of being accurately determined. 
Germany, since she has been blockaded by sea, 
exports infinitely less than formerly; consequently, 
her ability to settle her accounts in foreign 
countries is limited. When she was able to sell 
the United States a million marks* worth of mer- 
chandise, she then had at her disposal a million 
marks with which to pay cash for such imports as 
she needed. Now that her exports have been so 
reduced, she has little money to spare for spending 
abroad. If she wishes to increase these foreign 
purchases, she must export her gold and conse- 
quently reduce the security behind her bank- 
notes. This results in a lowering of the basis of 
German credit, with a resulting drop in exchange. 

We shall now see that this falling exchange, 
whatever its importance, does not take into ac- 

6 



THE DISEASE AND CURE 

count all the elements of the general financial situ- 
ation. 

If the blockade of Germany seriously compli- 
cates her food problems, on the other hand it is 
in a way advantageous from a financial point of 
view. In a word, when Germany found herself 
blockaded she was obliged to evolve means of ex- 
isting on her own resources or those of her allies. 
Our enemies had great difiiculties of organization 
to overcome, but they turned them to good ac- 
count: for if Germany's exports are small, her im- 
ports have been correspondingly reduced. Hence 
she needs to send very little money abroad — a fact 
which is financially in her favor. 

Now, the case of France is radically different. 
The French government, feeling assured of the 
liberty of the seas and believing that the war 
would be a short one, found it more expedient to 
place enormous orders abroad than to rely on do- 
mestic resources to supply the nation's need. As 
a result, French imports^ according to published 
statistics, exceed exports by one billion of francs a 
month. This means that, as things stand now, 
France must pay to foreign countries the stagger- 
ing sum of twelve billion francs a year, with no 
corresponding compensation, since her purchases 
consist of products which are destroyed in use. 
For this reason France is undergoing serious im- 
poverishment while Germany gets off compara- 
tively easily. It is therefore plain that the fluctua- 



PA N- GERM A NY 



tions of exchange bear little relation to those con- 
ditions which must be taken into consideration in 
making an appraisal of the general situation ; they 
reflect, in fact, only a special and limited aspect of 
the financial situation as a whole. Popular con- 
clusions drawn from the fall in the value of the 
mark are false when attempts are made to give 
them an absolute or general significance. 

Why people are still ignorant of the vast advantages 
gained hy Germany from the war 

Many of the Allies are hoodwinked by the 'great 
illusion' which even now prevents them, to their 
endless detriment, from seeing things as they ac- 
tually are. In the Allied nations, in fact, people 
continue to speak of Germany, Austria-Hungary, 
Bulgaria and Turkey, as if these states remained 
just as they were before the war. But these terms 
have no longer any relation to reality. The 
Quadruple Alliance of Central Europe is simply 
a great illusion, studiously fostered by William 
II, for by its means his plans are vastly facili- 
tated. As a matter of fact, Turkey, Bulgaria, 
and Austria-Hungary are not the allies, but the 
vassals, of Berlin, and their influence with her is 
less than that of Saxony or Bavaria. The rulers 
at Constantinople, Sofia, Vienna, and Budapest 
are simply marionettes moved by threads which 
are pulled by Berlin according to her strategic 
needs. 



THE DISEASE AND CURE 

Very often we hear it said, * Germany has creat- 
ed Mitteleuropa.* This is another mistake. Geo- 
graphically speaking, Mitteleuropa includes only 
Central Europe; and Germany's dominion is in- 
finitely further flung, extending as it does from the 
west front in France to the British front before 
Bagdad. If we wish to see things in the light of 
reality, we must say, for the present at least, 
* There is no longer any Germany; instead, there is 
Pan-Germany.' This is an essential assumption 
if we are to reason justly. The map of Pan-Ger- 
many at the beginning of 191 7, which is printed 
above, shows clearly the essential, but all-too- 
little-known elements of the present situation, 
which is characterized by the fact that 73 million 
Germans, aided by 21 million vassals, — Magyars, 
Slavs, and Turks, — have reduced to slavery 82 
millions of Latins, Slavs, and Semites, belonging 
to thirteen different nationalities. Pan-Germany, 
which has now almost completely reached the lim- 
its set by the Pan-German plan of 191 1, consists, 
therefore, of one vast territory containing about 
176 million inhabitants and natural resources of 
the greatest variety. 

I beg my readers to refer to this map of Pan- 
Germany every time it is made desirable by the 
text. This repeated study of the map is indispen- 
sable to a clear and complete comprehension of 
the demonstration which follows. As regards the 
profits which Germany has wrung from the war, 



PA N- GERM A N Y 



it is particularly important, in order to grasp the 
idea of Pan-Germany ; for it is the direct result of 
its creation that Germany, in spite of the losses 
and expenses inevitably incurred by a warring 
nation, has been able to assure herself of certain 
advantages which, considered as a whole, far out- 
balance her losses and expenses, as we shall see. 

In order to understand the nature of these ad- 
vantages, one point must first be made clear. 

The war has cost the Germans comparatively little 

For six fundamental reasons, the conduct of the 
war has really cost the Germans far less than it 
has cost their adversaries. 

I. No Experimentation. Germany, in order to 
produce a vast output of various types of guns and 
projectiles economically evolved in times of peace, 
needed only to extend, by means of machinery of 
domestic manufacture, her arsenals and muni- 
tion-factories, which before the war were already 
considerable. On the other hand, the production 
of war-material in France at the outbreak of hos- 
tilities was very slack, while in England and Rus- 
sia it was almost negligible. In these three coun- 
tries, therefore, it was necessary to improvise, as 
best might be, thousands of new plants, to equip 
them with machinery purchased in America at 
vast expense, and hastil}^ to evolve new types of 
cannon, projectiles, and the rest. Now, improvi- 
sation, especially in war-time, means false starts 

10 



THE DISEASE AND CURE 

and inevitable bad work, which must be paid 
dearly for. Germany was not obliged to incur 
these very considerable expenses. 

2. Regulated Wages. The fact that the problem 
of German wages was worked out at leisure in ex- 
act correlation to productions whose types were 
exhaustively studied in the calm of peace-time 
certainly allowed the Germans to obtain war-ma- 
terials at a lower net cost than was possible for 
the Allies. 

3. The Prevention of Waste. The absence of ex- 
perimentation and the simple extension to war- 
work of highly efficient industrial methods tested 
in peace-time, naturally allowed the Germans to 
avoid in all spheres those immense losses of ma- 
terial of every nature whose bad effects and heavy 
cost were incurred by the Allies. This state of 
affairs in France caused losses which were as 
expensive as they were inevitable. One may 
imagine the conditions existing in Russia, where 
control is far more difficult of exercise than in 
France. 

4. Cheap Labor. The Germans have forcibly 
enlisted the labor of about two million prisoners 
of war. Moreover, the official French report of 
April 12, 191 7, concerning acts committed by the 
Germans in violation of international law, asserts 
that in the occupied territories deportation of 
workers has been a general measure. It has ' ap- 
plied to the entire able-bodied population of both 

II 



PA N 'GERM A N Y 



sexes, from the ages of sixteen to sixty, excepting 
women with young children.' 

Now, the Germans requisition labor from among 
7,500,000 Belgians, 3,000,000 French, 4,500,000 
Serbians, 5,000,000 Roumanians, 22,000,000 
Poles, Ruthenians, and Lithuanians — a total of 
42,000,000 slaves. 

Let us see what sort of remuneration is made. 
Take the case of a young girl of Lille, twenty years 
old, who was forced to work for six months, har- 
vesting and threshing wheat and digging pota- 
toes from six in the morning to twilight, receiving 
all the while the vilest food. For her six months 
of work she was given 9 francs, 45 centimes. The 
Germans, therefore, have at their disposal a vast 
reservoir of labor for which they pay next to noth- 
ing ; moreover, the small amounts they do pay re- 
main in Pan-Germany. 

The Allies, on the contrary, pay high wages to 
their workers, and, when they run short, must 
needs pour out good gold in bringing reinforce- 
ments from Asia, Africa, and America. This 
means that a considerable part of the wages paid 
these foreign workmen will leave France or Eng- 
land for all time. 

5. Free Coal and Iron Ore, In addition to their 
own mines, the Germans have seized important 
coal and iron mines in France, Belgium, and Po- 
land. A vast proportion of their ore and coal 
therefore costs them nothing. Naturally, then, a 

12 



THE DISEASE AND CURE 

German shell made with French iron and Belgian 
coal costs far less than a French shell made with 
American steel and English coal. As a result, the 
net price of a greater part of German munitions 
is much lower than that paid by the Allies. 

6. Economical Transportation. By reason of 
the grouping of the Central Powers, — a result of 
the conquest of the Danube front by the Teutons, 
— Germany profits by a geographical situation 
which is infinitely more advantageous than that 
of the Allies, as regards not only the speed, but 
also the cheapness, of war-transportation. It is 
evident that it costs far less to send a shell from 
the Krupp factory to any one of the Pan-German 
fronts than to send an American shell to France, 
a Japanese shell to the Polish front, a French shell 
to Roumania via Archangel, or an English shell 
to the army operating in Mesopotamia. By the 
same token, the cost of transporting a soldier of 
Pan-Germany to any of the battle-fronts is infi- 
nitely lighter than that of transporting Allied 
soldiers from Australia or America. 

We should note that each one of these six fac- 
tors which we have just enumerated reacts pro- 
foundly on the sum-total of general war-expenses, 
and that, taken together, they involve a formid- 
able sum. It can therefore truthfully be said that 
Germany carries on the war much more econom- 
ically than the Allies. Figures are so far lacking 
which will give the true proportions, but we shall 

13 



PA N - GERM A N Y 



certainly remain well within the realities of the case 
if we conclude that, as a result of the six factors 
mentioned above, France must spend one hundred 
and fifty million francs for war material to every 
hundred million spent by Germany. When, 
therefore, France spends thirty billions, Ger- 
many evidently spends not more than twenty bil- 
lions. And what is true of France applies even more 
accurately to some of the other Allied nations. 

This is a fact of the greatest general import- 
ance in coming to a true understanding of the fin- 
ancial situation created by the war — a fact 
which takes on its full significance when we real- 
ize that Germany is not only carrying on the war 
cheaply, but that she has been enabled, by means 
of this war, to win very important advantages. 

They consist of seven principal elements. The 
last six of these, it should be noted without fail, 
depend solely on the existence of central Pan- 
Germany — that is, on the hegemony exercised by 
Germany over Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria, and 
Turkey; they are therefore wholly independent 
of the first element, which relates to Germany's 
occupation of enemy territories, particularly to 
the east and west. They may be summarized 
as follows : — 

SEVEN ELEMENTS IN TWO GROUPS 

The first group includes: — 

The advantages derived directly from Ger- 

14 



THE DISEASE AND CURE 

many's aggression, comprised in a single element, 
namely, the plunder accruing from the occupa- 
tion of enemy territory. This may be analyzed 
thus : — 

(a) The value of the 500,000 square kilometres 
of Montenegrin, Serbian, Roumanian, Russian, 
Belgian, and French land held by the Germans. 

This value, estimated according to the national 
fortunes of the respective countries before the 
war, — the area and population of the occupied 
portions being taken into consideration, — is in 
the neighborhood of 155 billion francs. 

This figure, though naturally only approximate, 
is probably far below the real sum. We know that 
the entire national fortune of France, with its 
536,000 square kilometres, was put before the war 
at 325 billion francs. The valuation of the 500,- 
000 square kilometres of occupied territory at 
155 billions seems therefore an underestimate, es- 
pecially when one remembers that these 500,000 
square kilometres include Belgium and the North 
of France — the richest districts in the world. 

(b) The plunder of human beings, supplies, and 
property (laborers, war-material, provisions, min- 
erals, raw products, manufactured products, per- 
sonal property, art objects, war levies, specie, 
jewels, and securities) which has been going on, in 
some cases for as long as three years, throughout 
the occupied territories. This booty unquestion- 
ably represents a value of tens of billions of francs. 

15 



PA N- GERM A N Y 



These tens of billions should be deducted from 
the total of the national fortunes of the invaded 
districts. The plunder in question is composed of 
property or supplies already used up by the Ger- 
mans or taken away by them into Germany; the 
value it represents, therefore, no longer exists in 
the invaded districts. 

The second group includes: — 

The advantages which Germany has assured 
herself for the present or for the future through 
the creation of Pan-Germany, which in turn re- 
sult from 

{a) Germany's burglarization of her own allies 
— Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria, and Turkey. 

{h) The seizure by Germany and her allies of 
Serbia; in all six elements: — 

I. The Pan-German loans, which throw Aus- 
tria-Hungary, Bulgaria, and Turkey into a state of 
absolute financial dependence on Berlin. 

II. The value of Germany's monopoly in ex- 
ploiting the latent resources of the Balkans and 
Asia Minor, resulting from the Pan-German loans. 

III. The inherent value of the creation of Eco- 
nomic Pan-Germany. This cannot fail to be a 
powerful instrument for the acquisition of wealth. 

IV. The value of Military Pan-Germany, which 
is a guaranty of the security of Economic Pan- 
Germany. 

V. The value of the enormous economic profits 

i6 



THE DISEASE AND CURE 

assured to Berlin through the existence of Pan- 
Germany at the cost of Russia. These are a direct 
consequence of the estabhshment of Military Pan- 
Germany. 

VI. The taking over by Germany of at least 
21 billions of French credit. This is a consequence 
of the establishment of Economic Pan-Germany. 



CHAPTER II 
How Much Germany Has Won in the War 

Let us now take up, in their order, the seven 
elements mentioned in the last chapter. 



The first element of German advantage: the booty 
acquired from the occupation of enemy territory 

Germany is getting direct war-profits from the 
enemy territories occupied by her. These terri- 
tories, listed in the ascending order of their rich- 
ness, are: Montenegro, 14,000 square kilometres; 
Albania, 20,000; Serbia, 87,000; Roumania, 70,000 
(Bulgaria and Austria-Hungary share the pillage 
of these four territories); dependent territories 
of Russia, 260,000; Belgium, 29,000; and France, 
20,000; making ^a grand total of 500,000 square 
kilometres. 

In order to realize as clearly as possible the im- 
portance of the booty wrung by Germany from 
this enormous area, we may establish by means of 
examples or statistics that this plunder comes 
from nine principal sources : — 

Seizure of Human Material. — Throughout 
these 500,000 square kilometres of occupied terri- 
tory, the Germans have scientifically enslaved 

18 



THE DISEASE AND CURE 

42,000,000 human beings, who furnish a vast 
amount of labor — this labor being all the cheaper 
because, as we shall see, the slaves are robbed in 
various ways. 

Seizure of War-Material. — By reason of their 
lightning advances in Belgium, France, Serbia, 
and Roumania the Germans have taken posses- 
sion of vast stores of war-material : cannon, rifles, 
munitions, wagons, locomotives, cars, as well as 
thousands of kilometres of railway, of which they 
make full use, representing a certain value of 
billions of francs. (The Belgian railway system 
alone is worth three billions.) 

Seizure of Food-stuffs. — The official report of 
April 12, 191 7, on the acts committed by the Ger- 
mans in France contrary to international law, 
states: 'The inhabitants, subjected as they were 
to annoyances of every sort, watched daily the 
theft of such food-stuffs as they happened to pos- 
sess. ' Everywhere the Germans steal horses, 
cattle, domestic animals, grain, potatoes, food- 
products of all kinds, sugar, alcohol, all of which 
constitute the reserve supply of the occupied 
countries. Their harvests, too, are appropriated 
through the cultivation of productive lands by 
means of labor obtained almost without cost from 
the enslaved peoples. 

Theft of Raw Materials. — Throughout the 
length and breadth of the occupied territories, the 
Germans, at the dictates of expediency, have 

19 



PA N - GERM A N Y 



seized raw materials: coal and iron ore, copper, 
petroleum, and so forth. Metals — bronze, zinc, 
lead, copper, tin — have been taken from private 
citizens, as well as textile fabrics — wool, cotton 
cloth, and the like. When one learns that from 
the cities of the North of France alone the Ger- 
mans stole 550 million francs' worth of wool, it is 
easy to see that this single source of plunder has 
been worth a number of billions to them. 

Theft of Finished Products. — Everywhere in 
the occupied territories, so far as means of trans- 
portation permit, motors, steam-hammers, ma- 
chinery, rolling-mills, lathes, presses, drills, elec- 
trical engines, looms, and so forth, have been 
taken to pieces by mechanics and transported into 
Germany. The total value of this stolen material 
in Belgium and the North of France alone — the 
richest industrial districts in the world — is al- 
most incalculable. 

Theft of Personal Property. — The official 
French report previously quoted states: 'In the 
shops, officers and soldiers made free with what- 
ever pleased their fancy. Every day the people 
witnessed the theft of property which was indis- 
pensable to them. At Ham, General von Fleck 
carried off all the furniture of M. Bernot's house, 
where he had been quartered.' The property 
thus stolen is sent to Germany, as is proved by 
this advertisement in the Kolnische Zeitung: 
* Furniture moved from the theatre of military 

20 



THE DISEASE AND CURE 

Operations to all destinations.' From this source, 
war-booty to the value of several billions has al- 
ready been divided among an army of Germans. 

Seizure of Works of Art. — The Germans have 
stolen countless works of art, * in order' — so runs 
a recent official note of their government — * that 
they may be preserved as a record of art and civil- 
ization.' — 'It would be impossible,' declares Le 
Temps, 'to find a more cynical admission of the 
thefts committed by the German authorities in 
our museums and public buildings.' If one re- 
members that this methodical pillage has gone 
merrily on among private individuals, drawing on 
the unlimited stores of works of art which have 
been accumulated throughout the centuries in 
Poland, and particularly in Belgium and France, 
it must certainly be apparent that the value of 
these stolen art treasures is immense. 

War Imposts, — Our official report establishes 
that 'Requisitions have everywhere been contin- 
uous. Towns that have had to meet the expenses 
of troops quartered within their jurisdiction have 
been overwhelmed by huge levies.' 

Belgium is staggering under an annual war as- 
sessment of 480,000,000 francs. Bucharest, after 
its capture by the Germans, was forced to pay a 
levy amounting to about 1900 francs per capita 
of the population. At Craiova the levy was 950 
francs per capita. An edict forbids the circulation 
of paper money unless it has been specially 

21 



PA N -GERM A N Y 



stamped by the Germans, who retain 30 per cent 
of its nominal value. 

In April, 191 7, the Frankfurter Zeitung an- 
nounced that the leaders of the Austro-German 
forces of occupation in Roumania would shortly 
call for an obligatory internal loan of a hundred 
million francs. In Poland, the German govern- 
ment has just issued a billion marks in paper 
money for enforced circulation. These are only 
single examples. 

Theft of Specie, Jewels, and Securities. — In 
September, 1916, the Germans seized three quar- 
ters of a billion francs from the National Bank of 
Belgium in Brussels, which was subsequently 
transferred to Germany. In January, 191 7, on 
the steamer Prinz Hendrick, they stole a million 
francs from a Belgian who was traveling from 
England, and took ten million francs' worth of 
diamonds from the mail-bags. In the village of 
Vraignes, on March 18, 191 7, the Germans, be- 
fore evicting the inhabitants, stole from them the 
13,800 francs they had in their possession. At 
Noyon — we learn from the official report already 
quoted — the Germans broke open and pillaged 
the safes of banks and private citizens before re- 
tiring from the town. The securities, jewels, and 
silver plate of Noyon represented a value of about 
eighteen million francs. And, as I have said, these 
are only random incidents. 

Taking into consideration, then, the present 

22 



THE DISEASE AND CURE 

high prices of food-products, coal, metal, petro- 
leum, war-material, machinery, and the rest, it 
can be seen at a glance that each one of the nine 
sources of booty just enumerated, on which the 
Germans have been steadily drawing, in some 
cases for as much as three years, has unquestion- 
ably yielded the value of several billions of francs, 
— certain of them, perhaps, tens of billions. 
Hence we may reasonably conclude that, without 
fixing a definite figure for the yield of these nine 
sources, the total plunder has mounted well up 
in the tens of billions. 

Another basis for calculating the worth of the 
invaded territories to Germany lies in the fact 
that the national fortunes of these countries, ac- 
cording to ante-bellum statistics, amounted to 
about 155 billions of francs. 

We shall now examine the six other elements 
of Germany's present advantageous situation — 
those which result from the domination which the 
war has enabled her to exert over her own allies, 
Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria, and Turkey. This 
domination, which amounts practically to actual 
seizure, has permitted her to fulfill the scheme of 
Central Pan-Germany as a result of the crushing 
of Serbia. 



23 



PA N - GERM A N Y 



II 

The second element of German advantage: 
the Pan-German loans 

A portion of the approximate sum of 115 bil- 
lion francs devoted by Germany, up to the end of 
July, 191 7, to the carrying on of the war has en- 
abled her to burglarize her own allies by taking 
advantage of the extremely bad financial situation 
which faced them at the end of the Balkan wars. 
As a result of this situation, Austria-Hungary, 
Bulgaria, and Turkey, in order to sustain the 
present long-drawn-out struggle, have been forced 
to draw on the credit of Berlin. The sum total of 
the loans made by Germany to her allies and se- 
cured by her own war loans cannot yet be verified, 
but there can be no doubt that it mounts up to a 
respectable number of billions. 

These loans have worked out to the immense 
advantage of Germany, for the following reasons. 
Established facts prove that, without the assist- 
ance of Austro-Hungarian, Bulgarian, and Turk- 
ish troops, and without the numerous products 
supplied her by the Orient, Germany would have 
been beaten long ago, even in spite of the Allies' 
blundering. As these troops and resources are of 
priceless value to Germany, it would seem that 
she must have paid dearly for them, and in gold. 
However, as the reserve of the German Imperial 

24 



THE DISEASE AND CURE 

Bank was 1,356,875,000 marks in July, 1914, and 
2,527,315,000 in February, 191 7, it is certain that 
Germany has not lent gold to her allies, — in large 
quantities, at any rate, — but only paper, whose 
value depends solely on the strength of German 
credit. 

In reality, therefore, Germany, simply by keep- 
ing a printing-press busy turning out little stamp- 
ed slips of paper, has obtained troops, food-stuffs, 
and raw materials which were indispensable to her 
in avoiding defeat ; and at the same time she has so 
established herself as a creditor as to give her the 
right to exact final payment by her allies for ad- 
vances which were primarily made to them in Ger- 
many's own vital interest. 

Now these obligations weigh so heavily on 
countries like Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria, and 
Turkey, already in sore stress, that they incur 
loans which no one of these three countries can 
ever hope to pay off unless a victory of the Allied 
democracies should shatter the financial yoke of 
Berlin. 

In order to appreciate the nature of these loans 
and their consequences, the example of Turkey is 
particularly instructive. * Germany's advances to 
Turkey in no way represent Turkish war-expendi- 
ture. We must add to them the requisitions 
made in the country itself, and the war-material 
purchas ed in Germany and Austria-Hungary 
which is not yet paid for. ' 

25 



PA N -GERM A N Y 



At the beginning of 191 7 Djavid Bey arranged 
in Berlin for a new loan of three million pounds, 
simply to enable Turkey to pay her debts to the 
Krupp firm, as well as the advances made her by 
the different groups of financiers and the German 
Minister of Finance. This means, therefore, 
that, when Germany sends arms to the Turks in 
order that they may use them to consolidate the 
Pan-German scheme, she also finds a means of 
making this consignment of arms serve to en- 
tangle the Turks still more hopelessly in the finan- 
cial web. 'In Pan-Germanist circles, there has 
been much discussion of the compensations which 
Turkey must make to Germany in return for serv- 
ices rendered in the course of the war. It is the 
unanimous opinion that Germany, without gain- 
ing any territorial acquisitions in Turkey, must 
have controlling rights in the Ottoman Empire, 
so that the Pera-Galata bridge may be as near 
Berlin as Constantinople.' 

What has taken place in the spheres of finance 
between Berlin and Constantinople has, by the 
very nature of things, been duplicated between 
Berlin and Sofia, though of course in a less pro- 
nounced form. Germany, therefore, by means of 
paper loans based on her own credit, has caused 
colossal obligations to be assumed by her allies — 
countries representing vast areas of land : Austria- 
Hungary with 676,616 square kilometres, Bul- 
garia with 114,104, and Turkey with 1,792,900, or 

26 



THE DISEASE AND CURE 

2,583,620 square kilometres in all. Now these 
three countries are precisely the ones which are 
indispensable to the carrying out of the Central 
Pan-German 'Hamburg to the Persian Gulf 
scheme; the loans, therefore, are Pan-Germanist 
loans. 

It should be borne in mind, on the other hand, 
that although Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria, and 
Turkey are financially encumbered in their quality 
of states, the exploitation of these countries by the 
Germans is very profitable. Their combined na- 
tional fortunes were estimated, before the war, 
at about 269 billion francs. We must realize also 
that, although these loans granted by Berlin to 
her allies are merely paper loans, they bind Tur- 
key, Bulgaria, and Austria-Hungary to Germany 
as closely as debtors can be bound to a creditor. 
None of these three countries can reasonably 
hope to get funds after the war from their present 
adversaries, who, it is certain, will have none too 
much money for their own needs; and so the 
financial situation as a whole combines with the 
enterprise shown by the Berlin General Staff to 
strengthen the grip which Germany has obtained 
over her allies through loans. 

As this financial dependence of the three vassal 
states, with its tremendous consequences, is, as I 
have said, maintained simply by means of a print- 
ing-press and little slips of paper, which cost very 
little indeed; and since Germany receives in ex- 

27 



PA N -GERM A N Y 



change for these slips of paper bearing her signa- 
ture, men, food-stuffs, and supplies which, but 
for the action of the Allies, would enable her to 
establish Pan-Germany as mistress of Europe, 
we may safely say that the Pan-Germanist loans 
floated by Berlin at her allies' expense constitu- 
tute a powerful element of military advantage, 
which, if one but examines the conditions of its 
origin, must stand out as the most profitable and 
extraordinary swindle ever perpetrated. 

Ill 

The third element of German advantage: the value of 
a monopoly in exploiting the latent resources of 
the Balkans and Asia Minor 

The figure of 269 billions of francs quoted above 
takes no account of the enormous agricultural 
and mineral wealth, as yet unexploited and unap- 
praised, of the Balkans and the Ottoman Empire. 
Now, the business of tapping these vast reser- 
voirs is entirely in the hands of the Germans, as a 
result of the Pan-Germanist loans. 

IV 

The fourth element of German advantage: the value 
resulting from the creation of an economic Pan- 
Germany 

Economic Pan-Germany, as it was outlined by 
List, Roscher, Rodbertus, and other German econ- 

28 



THE DISEASE AND CURB 

omists, may be defined as follows: A territory 
uniting under one supreme central control Cen- 
tral Europe, the Balkans, and Turkey — a territory 
large enough to include military and economic re- 
sources entirely sufficient to provide for the needs of 
the population in times of war; and to assure its 
rulers in times of peace the domination of the world. 

The seizure by Berlin of Austria-Hungary, Bul- 
garia, and Turkey — all essential elements of Cen- 
tral Pan-Germany — was accomplished in three 
ways: militarily^ by the supremacy acquired by 
the German General Staff over the troops of the 
vassal states ; financially, by means of the paper 
loans granted by Germany; and diplomatically, by 
the treaties signed in Berlin on January ii, 191 7, 
establishing the strongest sort of German protec- 
torate over the Ottoman Empire. This done, the 
consolidation of Pan-Germany was quickly under- 
taken by Berlin in a great number of ways. 

Control of Customs. — As the establishment of 
the great Pan-German Zollverein (Customs Un- 
ion) was not to be accomplished at one stroke, the 
Kaiser's government set about preparing the nec- 
essary steps. Numerous conferences held at Ber- 
lin and attended by German, Austrian, and Hun- 
garian statesmen and business men, resulted in the 
following essential provisions, (i) An economic 
customs agreement of long duration, which would 
make a single economic unit of Germany and Aus- 
tria-Hungary; (2) to bring this about gradually, a 

29 



PA N - GERM A N Y 



progressive increase of duty — free articles, and 
a unification of the customs charges on certain 
goods; (3) a close economic union between Aus- 
tro-Germany and Bulgaria and Turkey, to be ar- 
ranged and established with the greatest possible 
expedition. 

Ethnographic Control. — Certain nations afford 
considerable resistance to the Hamburg-Persian 
Gulf scheme. The Serbians, who are morally irre- 
ducible, are an obstacle to the permanent estab- 
lishment of the Pan-German nexus between Hun- 
gary and Bulgaria; and without this the entire 
Pan-German programme falls flat. The system- 
atic destruction of the Serbian people has been 
entrusted to the Bulgars, who, under pretext of 
quelling insurrections, slaughter not only the Ser- 
bian men, but also women and children, down to 
babies at the breast. In the Ottoman Empire the 
Armenians happen to occupy those regions which 
were characterized in the Reichstag by Herr Del- 
briick as ' Germanic India.' Berlin therefore puts 
to good use the Turks' inherited taste for massa- 
cres of Christians. Already more than one million 
Armenians have been got out of the way. 

Agricultural Control. — ■ The food crisis in Ger- 
many has led Berlin to proceed with the greatest 
haste toward utilizing the rich farming districts 
which the fortunes of war have put within her 
grasp. Hundreds of experts, with thousands of 
agricultural implements, have been sent to Rou- 

30 



THE DISEASE AND CURE 

mania, Serbia, and Asia Minor. In this latter 
country, two cultural centres in particular have 
received attention. In the province of Adana cot- 
ton-growing is being developed; on the plains of 
Anatolia the intensive cultivation of grain is in 
progress. These energetic efforts have had a two- 
fold result : the Turks will not revolt against Ger- 
manic domination — because of starvation, if for 
no other reason; and, by reason of the increasing 
yield of Serbian, Roumanian, and Turkish lands, 
more of which are continually being brought into 
service, the food-supply of the Central Empires 
becomes more and more completely assured. 

Banking Control. — The exploitation of Eastern 
Pan-Germany calls for vast capital. The Ger- 
man, Austro-Hungarian, Bulgarian, and Turkish 
banks have formed powerful combinations. As 
the leaders of this movement in Germany we find 
the Deutsche Bank, the Dresdner Bank, the 
Kolnische Bankverein; in Austria-Hungary the 
Vienna Kredit-Anstalt and the Hungarian Bank 
of Credit in Budapest. 

Economic Control. — As the rapid exploitation 
of the latent resources of the Balkans and Turkey 
is the principal economic object of the Germans, 
they have just established, in cooperation with 
King Ferdinand, the 'Institute for Furthering 
Economic Relations between Germany and Bul- 
garia.' In order to facilitate the Germanic pene- 
tration of Turkey, ten thousand Turkish boys be- 

31 



PAN'GERMA n y 



tween the ages of twelve and eighteen years are to 
come to Germany for their technical education. 
These young Turks, living in German families, 
learning German, and saturating themselves with 
German ideas, will soon be able collaborators with 
the Teutons themselves in germanizing Turkey 
and exploiting the numerous concessions which, 
if the war turns out successfully for them, will be 
wrung from the Ottoman government by the sub- 
jects of the Kaiser. 

Railway Control. — The railway systems of Eu- 
ropean Pan-Germany have been brought to the 
highest degree of perfection. In Turkey, German 
officers are absolutely in control of the railroads. 
Out of the 2435 kilometres which separate Con- 
stantinople from Bagdad, only 583 kilometres of 
line remain to be constructed — and this distance 
is traversed by automobile roads. As for the 
Turkish railroads belonging to French and Eng- 
lish companies, the German government has sug- 
gested that the Turks * purchase' them. One 
should cherish no illusions as to the real meaning 
of this word 'purchase.' It means, according to 
Turco-German methods, that the expenses in- 
volved in this purchase should be set down against 
the war damages which the Central Powers con- 
sider to be due them from the Allies. 

Canal Control. — The canal project, outlined as 
far back as April 26, 1895, by the Pan-Germanist 
Dr. G. Zoepfl, was taken up and begun by the 



32 



THE DISEASE AND CURE 

Economic Congress of Central Europe, which met 
at Berlin on March 19, 1917. This project is 
made up of the following elements: (i) Union of 
the Rhine with the Danube by the opening up to 
navigation of the Main and of the canal from 
the Main to the Danube. (2) Completion of the 
central canal joining the Vistula and the Rhine. 
(3) The Oder-Danube canal, joining the Baltic 
and Black Sea. (4) Opening to navigation of 
the Rhine as far as B^le. (5) Union of the Elbe 
with the Danube by means of the river Moldau. 
(6) Union of the Weser with the Main by means of 
the Fulda-Werra. (7) Connection of the Danube 
and the Vistula by means of canals. (8) Union 
of the Danube with the Dniester by means of 
the Vistula. (9) Opening to navigation of the 
Save. (10) Opening to navigation of the Morava 
and the Vardar as far as Saloniki. The Danube 
is the base of this gigantic programme of con- 
struction. 'The Danube means everything to 
us,* declared General von Groener, in December, 
1916. 

This rapid sketch of the preparations now going 
on in the economic sphere of Pan-Germany will 
permit any clear-thinking man to understand the 
crushing power which will lie in this formidable 
system when all its latent resources have been de- 
veloped by the Germans to the profit of their he- 
gemony. The organization of Pan-Germany is 

33 



PA N -GERM A N Y 



only in its first stages; nevertheless, the concen- 
trated military, economic, and strategic strength 
which it has already put at the disposal of Berlin 
is so great that it permits Germany to baffle her 
far more numerous, but widely scattered, adver- 
saries. What, then, would be the strength of a 
completely organized Pan-Germany? It is unde- 
niable, in fact, that a methodical, big-scale devel- 
opment of all the mineral, vegetable, animal, and 
industrial products of economic Pan-Germany, 
together with the low-cost transportation afforded 
by a complete system of canals, would make it 
possible for the Germans to pay high wages to 
their own workmen, and yet at the same time 
bring about such a reduction of net prices in every 
line of industry as to force Pan-German products 
on the whole world by their sheer cheapness. 

It is easy to see, then, that in the face of eco- 
nomic Pan-Germany's overwhelming methods 
any economic revival on the part of the European 
nations now allied would be impossible. The eco- 
nomic ruin of the Allies, after so exhausting and 
costly a war as this, would by the nature of things 
bring about their political subjection to Berlin. 
Besides, there is not a country in the world which 
could escape the clutches of economic Pan-Ger- 
many on the one hand, or the consequences of the 
irremediable ruin of the Allies on the other. The 
fact that Pan-Germany is organizing itself is an 
ominous event which should receive the concen- 

34 



THE DISEASE AND CURE 

trated attention of all the world's free peoples; 
for it places in German hands the elements of such 
an overwhelming economic power as has no prece- 
dent in the world's history. 



The fifth element of German advantage: the value of 
military Pan-Germany 

Berlin relies, above all else, on her military re- 
sources to render secure for all time that economic 
Pan-Germany which is destined to provide her, in 
peace-time, with a permanent means of acquiring 
wealth and world-dominion. Military Pan-Ger- 
many is, therefore, the complement and the pledge 
of economic Pan-Germany. The Kaiser's success- 
ful seizure, through the fortunes of war, of new 
sources of man-power — Austro-Hungarian, Bul- 
garian, and Ottoman soldiery; of new strategic 
points or regions of exceptional importance, lo- 
cated in invaded countries or in those of his own al- 
lies, has furnished him with the basis of military 
Pan-Germany. In 19 14, Prussian militarism held 
sway over only the 68 million inhabitants of the 
German Empire. At the beginning of 191 7, it had 
been extended by consent or by force to the 176 
million people of Pan-Germany. 

This result — evidently the consequence of an 
immense extension of exclusive influence through- 
out Central and Eastern Europe — has permitted 

35 



PA N - GERM A NY 



the German General Staff to take over at will 
certain strategic points or regions of the greatest 
importance, over which it exerted no direct influ- 
ence before the war. Zeebrugge, on the North 
Sea, for instance; Trieste, Pola, and Cattaro on 
the Adriatic; the Bulgarian coasts of the JEgean; 
the Ottoman Straits; the Turkish, Bulgarian, and 
Roumanian shores of the Black Sea, have always 
been strategic points or districts of exceptional 
value. 

This value, however, has become vastly greater 
now that these points or districts form part of 
a single military system under the directing and 
organizing power of the Berlin General Staff. At 
present, these essential strategic points and dis- 
tricts are the strongholds of the Pan-German 
frontiers. They are, in fact, connected by contin- 
uous fortifications, defended in the most effective 
way the world has ever known by an intensive 
system of barbed- wire entanglements, deep-dug 
subterranean shelters, machine-guns, and heavy 
artillery. The internal military organization of 
Pan-Germany is being carried forward with unin- 
terrupted speed. Factories of war-material have 
been judiciously distributed throughout the whole 
territory, with the double object of utilizing raw 
materials near their source of origin, thus avoiding 
useless transportation, and of making possible the 
swift dispatch of munitions to any threatened 
sector of front. For this reason the Krupp firm, 

36 



THE DISEASE AND CURE 

at the outbreak of war, established important 
branch factories, not only in Bavaria, but also in 
Bulgaria and Turkey. 

The railway system and strategic automobile 
roads in Pan-Germany have been developed very 
swiftly — notably in the Balkans and in Turkey, 
where the need was relatively great. Back of 
every military front railroads running parallel 
with that front have been constructed, so that re- 
inforcements may be sent to any given point with 
the maximum of speed. All this, taken as a whole, 
has converted Pan-Germany into one gigantic, 
extremely powerful fortress. 

A new phase is now in preparation. The Kai- 
ser's General Staff, not content with holding the 
high command of all forces in Pan-Germany, is 
determined to standardize as far as possible their 
arms, their munitions, and their methods of in- 
struction. The Deputy Friedrich Naumann — 
one of the sponsors of the Mitteleuropa idea — is 
plainly smoothing the way toward this end, 
which, because of geographic reasons, most inti- 
mately concerns Austria-Hungary. In the Voss- 
ische Zeitung he has just outlined a scheme of * full 
and complete harmony of the Central Empires in 
so far as military matters are concerned.' He 
boldly adds an avowal which is well worth remem- 
bering. ^Mitteleuropa is in existence to-day. 
Nothing is lacking save its organs of movement 
and action. These organs can be provided by its 

37 



PA N- GERM A N Y 



two emperors, since they have at their disposal the 
necessary elements for the creation of a common 
army.' 

This prophecy merits our close attention ; for it 
can readily be seen that, if the unification of the 
Armies of the two Central Empires were to take 
place, neither Bulgaria nor Turkey, on whose mili- 
tary resources the German General Staff is getting 
an increasingly firm grip, could prevent the ab- 
sorption of their armed forces into the Pan-Ger- 
man system. 

As for the military strength of Pan-Germany, 
it is an easy matter to estimate it. Even if the 
Kaiser's armies were to withdraw from Russia, 
Poland, Belgium, and France, Pan-Germany 
would still include 150,000,000 people. Now, as 
Germany has mobilized about 20 per cent of her 
own population and that of her allies, — who have 
become vassals, — we see that Central Pan -Ger- 
many can count upon approximately 30,000,000 
soldiers. Prussian militarism, whose destruction 
by the Allies has become the true, legitimate, es- 
sential aim of the war, has therefore become far 
more widespread, through the carrying out of the 
Hamburg-Persian Gulf scheme, than it was in 
1914. It is proved by well-established facts that 
Berlin, while vigorously pushing a peace campaign 
destined to disunite the Allies, is doing everything 
in her power to turn Pan-Germany into a fortress 
the strength of which is unexampled in the world's 

38 



THE DISEASE AND CURE 

history. In any case it is undeniable that, as mili- 
tary Pan-Germany is a pledge of the success of 
economic Pan-Germany, its establishment consti- 
tutes an important element of advantage for the 
German cause. This will be further proved when 
we come to examine the two final elements of ad- 
vantage. 

VI 

The sixth element of German advantage: the im- 
portance of the vast economic profits which accrue 
to Berlin at the expense of Russia through the 
establishment of Pan-Germany 

We need only glance at the map to realize that 
a really free Russian republic could never range 
itself on the side of Pan-Germany. It is self- 
evident that, if Pan-Germany were to succeed in 
splitting Europe in two, her economic and mili- 
tary pressure toward the East would be irresist- 
ible. The countless agents whom Berlin already 
maintains in the immense territory of Russia 
would find their work becoming easier and easier. 
Following up the hypothesis, then, Russia, suc- 
cumbing to insoluble financial problems and un- 
ending internal difficulties, would break up, from 
the Baltic to the Pacific, into a series of anarchis- 
tic republics — all of which is according to the 
plans of Lenine, who is a creature of Berlin. After 
that there would be nothing to prevent German 
influence from becoming the controlling force in 

39 



PA N 'GERM A NY 



the economic exploitation of the immense natural 
riches of European and Asiatic Russia. 

We are well within the bounds of reason in pre- 
dicting such a possibility. The fact that German 
agents have already succeeded in stirring up most 
serious trouble throughout the length and breadth 
of Russia — that they have provoked separatist 
movements in Finland, Ukrainia, and the Cauca- 
sus, and that all China is seething with disturb- 
ances which react on Asiatic Russia — proves to 
the satisfaction of the most skeptical that the 
break-up of Russia into little states inevitably 
subject to the political and economic influence of 
Berlin would be an inevitable consequence of a 
successful Pan-Germany. 

It is plain, therefore, that the huge profits 
which the Germans would stand to gain by such a 
state of affairs — a direct result of military Pan- 
Germany — form an element of advantage wor- 
thy of being considered by itself. 

VII 

The seventh element of German advantage: the trans- 
fer to Germany of at least twenty-one billion francs 
of French credit 

The creation of military and economic Pan- 
Germany makes possible a method of securing 
war-booty planned in advance by the Pan-Ger- 
manists, which may be stated as follows: The 

40 



THE DISEASE AND CURE 

transfer to Germany of funds owed to one of her ene- 
mies by another enemy, or by one of her own allies. 

In order to understand this method of extortion 
one need only read a passage from Tannenberg's 
book, Greater Germany, published in French trans- 
lation in 1 91 6 by the firm of Payot. This work 
possesses exceptional interest for two reasons: 
first, it appeared in Germany in 191 1 ; its publica- 
tion, therefore, was evidently inspired, as in many 
other cases, by the ruling class at Berlin, in order 
to prepare the German people for war by promises 
of colossal booty; second, the facts of the case 
show that the German General Staff, ever since 
the outbreak of hostilities, has been modeling the 
political conduct of the war on the exact lines laid 
down by Tannenberg, who may be said to have 
officially declared the Pan-German scheme of 191 1. 

Now, independent of the 35 billion marks — 
nearly 44 billion francs — which were to be im- 
posed on France in the coming war by way of reg- 
ular war indemnity, Tannenberg, in Article 5 of 
the hypothetical treaty, outlined the following ad- 
ditional extortion : — 

* France cedes to Germany her claim to the 12 
billion marks (15 billion francs) lent by her to 
Russia.' This means nothing more or less than a 
cession of credit. 

On page 308 of Payot' s edition, Tannenberg in- 
dicates as follows the use to be made by Germany 
of these Russian debts to France : — - 

41 



PA N -GERM A N Y 



*We shall not be able to give thanks to Holy 
Russia for this splendid sum, for she has made 
such vile use of these billions that to-day almost 
nothing remains. There is no question of reim- 
bursement. Russia is not a mortgaged property 
subject to payment of interest, which can be sold 
when this interest is not promptly forthcoming oe 
the day it is due. However, we shall be able to 
collect our money in another way, simply by tak- 
ing in exchange for these credits the territories of 
the Poles in Posnania, East Prussia, and Upper 
Silesia; of the Lithuanians on the banks of the 
Niemen; of the Letts on the Duna; of the Estho- 
nians on the Embach and the regions bordering on 
the rivers of the northern coastal country; of the 
Czechs in Bohemia, Austrian Silesia, and Mora- 
via ; of the Slavs in Southern Ukrainia, Carinthia^ 
Styria, Croatia, Dalmatia, Goerz, and Gradiska, 
in so far as they come within the southern and 
eastern limits of Greater Germany. 

'This procedure enables us to kill three birds 
with one stone. Russia rids herself of the burden 
of debts and interest-paying which is crushing her ; 
the Slavs of the West and South become citizens 
of a Slavic country; and we Germans obtain, free 
of debt and incumbrance, the much-needed terri- 
tories for colonization.' 

These words were written in 191 1 . On May 24, 
191 7, the Berlin Tdgliche Rundschau thus exposed 
Germany's future attitude toward Russia : — 

42 



THE DISEASE AND CURE 

' If we reach an agreement with the new Rus- 
sian government, or with the government which 
succeeds it, so much the better; but in making 
our terms we shall deliberately turn to account 
the internal situation of the ancient empire now 
in revolution. It is more essential to-day than 
ever before that we should push our claims against 
Russia for indemnity and for the annexation of 
that territory which we so sorely need for coloni- 
zation. ' 

The similarity between this programme of an- 
nexation and indemnity, written so recently, and 
Tannenberg's outline, published six years ago, is 
indeed striking. 

Let us now see how, in the pfesent state of af- 
fairs, Tannenberg's plan for a transfer of credit 
could be worked out. Suppose we suggest a hy- 
pothesis. 

In the first place, it is evident that, if Russia 
should continue to submit to anarchy fostered by 
German agents, her financial situation, already 
perilous, would no longer permit her to pay the in- 
terest on her bonds held abroad. Again, if Pan- 
Germany, now momentarily established, con- 
tinues to exist, Berlin will be able to take over 
Russian obligations to France without the neces- 
sity of a formal treaty. In fact, the tremendous 
pressure against Russia, exerted by the mere 
geographical contact of Pan-Germany as she lies 
athwart Europe, would practically render unneces- 

43 



PA N -GERM A N Y 



sary the formal cession of French credit. Berlin, 
taking fullest advantage of the situation, would 
then say to Petrograd, 'We consider that France 
owes us a considerable sum by way of war-in- 
demnity. We are unable to collect this, but you 
Russians also owe an indemnity. We therefore 
assume the position of France as your creditor, 
and, as the strength of Pan-Germany has put you 
practically at our mercy, we demand the pay- 
ment of your debts in such and such a form.' 

What resistance could disorganized Russia 
make to this claim, presented with true German 
cynicism? 

Russian extremists need not hope, as certain 
of them do, to avoid paying the debts contracted 
by the old regime. If they do not care to fulfill 
their obligations to France, which is working hard 
to sustain the Russian Revolution, they will have 
to pay those same debts to Berlin, where full use 
would be made of them to exploit the Russian 
people. 

Moreover, the 'purchase' of French- and Eng- 
lish-owned railroads in Turkey, suggested several 
months ago by Berlin, of which we have already 
spoken, proves convincingly that the Germans 
intend also to follow out the system of transferring 
credits in cases where money is owed by Ger- 
many's allies to Germany's enemies. For a long 
period great numbers oi Frenchmen purchased 
the state obligations of Austria-Hungary, Serbia, 

44 



THE DISEASE AND CURE 

Bulgaria, Roumania, and Turkey. It is impossi- 
ble to give the exact amount of French money 
thus invested in Pan-Germanized Central and 
Eastern Europe, for the securities of the above- 
mentioned countries were generally floated in 
several foreign financial centres at once; but per- 
sons who have the most thorough knowledge of 
French investments make a minimum estimate of 
six billion francs. As for the French money in- 
vested in Roumania and Serbia it will vanish into 
thin air as soon as the Austro-German conquests 
are consolidated. As for investments in Austria- 
Hungary, Bulgaria, and Turkey, the assumption 
by Germany of French credits — supposing peace 
to be concluded on the basis of the present war- 
map — would be easily accomplished if she rea- 
soned as follows with her allies: — 

'France now owes you war indemnities which 
you cannot collect. By putting them down 
against the obligations owed by you to France, 
you cancel this debt. However, we Germans have 
lent you during the war great sums, and furnished 
you with supplies without which you could never 
have continued the struggle. Since you cannot 
meet these obligations we shall secure ourselves, 
in part at least, by assuming France's position as 
your creditor.' 

On the whole, if the present state of things 
were to continue, Berlin, by the process of trans- 
ferring credit, would be able to cause France the 

45 



PA N ' GERM A N Y 



very considerable loss of about 15 billion francs 
owed her by Russia, and 6 billions owed by Ger- 
many's vassal states — a total of at least 21 
billions. Now that the Pan-German scheme has 
for the moment been accomplished, we can truth- 
fully say that 2 1 billions of French money, at the 
lowest estimate, represented by Russia, Austrian, 
Hungarian, Serbian, Bulgarian, and Turkish se- 
curities, have been virtually Pan-Germanized. 



CHAPTER HI 

The Necessity for a Decision 

In the preceding chapters I have pointed out 
that the advantages which Germany has already 
gained through the war, or has assured for her- 
self in the future, if the present situation remains 
essentially unchanged, consist of seven chief 
elements. Before we arrive at final conclusions 
concerning these elements, let us establish the 
following facts : — 

I. In three years of war, Germany has spent 
on the war 1612 francs per capita of her popula- 
tion. France, in the same period, has spent 2200 
francs per capita — that is to say, 608 francs, or 
the immense figure of 38 per cent, more than Ger- 
many. 

If the formula 'without indemnity ' be adopted, 
with respect to the expenses of the war, far 
indeed from serving the cause of the Right, it 
would result in this unspeakable iniquity: each 
Frenchman who desired peace would have to bear 
a financial burden heavier by more than a third 
than that of each German and loyal subject of 
the Kaiser who loosed the dogs of war. There- 
fore this enormous difference — 38 per cent — 
jn the per capita war-expenses between France 

47 



PA N -GERM A NY 



and Germany would in itself suffice to make the 
economic — and hence the political — downfall of 
France, swift, complete, inevitable, and beyond 
recall. 

2. Unquestionably Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria, 
and Turkey, as separate states^ have been ruined 
by their war-expenses, but this ruin is all to the 
advantage of Germany, as it throws her vassals 
into a condition of absolute financial dependence. 
As a result, if Pan-Germany is to continue to 
exist, the Berlin government must be the unchal- 
lenged controller of all the financial combinations 
on which the peace and well-being of Pan-Ger- 
many depend. Now these combinations evident- 
ly can serve only to strengthen the German hege- 
mony. 

No parallel situation is to be found among the 
Entente powers. The ruin of Russia, for example, 
would simply make the ruin of France more inevi- 
table, unless a decisive victory of the Allies were to 
rob Germany of her iniquitous spoils and at the 
same time guarantee to France the legitimate rep- 
aration which alone can save her from irretriev- 
able financial disaster. 

3. If Germany can still continue to float new 
internal loans with comparative ease, it is because 
her wholesale territorial and Pan-German seizures 
are considered by her people as new pledges of the 
credit of the German state as the heart of Pan- 
Germany. 

48 



THE DISEASE AND CURB 

4. France, which has spent in three years of war 
2500 francs per capita of her population, has suf- 
fered only loss: 20,000 square kilometres of her 
territory have been invaded, and given over to 
undreamed-of spoliation at German hands. Ger- 
many, on the other hand, which has spent only 
1 69 1 francs per capita for the war, has occupied 
500,000 square kilometres of foreign soil, bur- 
glarized her own allies, and piled up huge profits 
from the war. 

The diversity of these profits is so great, and 
the mortgage that they have placed on the future 
is so heavy, that no figures will convey the sum- 
total of these advantages; but enough has been 
said to show that the aggregate is enormous. If 
one deducts the 115 billions of francs devoted by 
Germany to the war from the total represented by 
all the elements of advantage already enumerated, 
one begins to realize that Germany has really 
wrung from the war present and future profits 
which can be computed only in hundreds of hiU 
lions of francs. This war, therefore, has brought 
Germany boundless material gain, such as no war 
in history has ever brought to one people. It is 
equally certain, on the other hand, that Germany 
can utilize her advantages only on the express 
condition of maintaining certain indispensable 
conditions of the situation on which they are 
based. We shall now see to what minimum these 
conditions may be reduced. 

49 



PA N -GERM A N Y 



Our table shows that out of the seven elements 
of advantage won by Germany from the war, the 
last six — that is, those in the second group — 
are altogether independent of the first, except for 
one small detail relating to the national fortunes 
of the territories occupied by Germany to the 
southeast — that is, in Albania, Montenegro, 
Roumania, and Serbia. 
^J If, therefore, the formula, 'peace without an- 
nexations and indemnities, 'were actually adopted, 
Germany, by withdrawing from Belgium and 
France to the west, Russian Poland to the east, 
and Montenegro, Albania, Roumania, and Serbia 
to the southeast, would renounce her first element 
of advantage, represented by the value of the in- 
vaded territories — that is, about 155 billion 
francs. From this, however, must be deducted 
the tens of billions' worth of plunder carried out 
of the invaded territories during these three 
years, consisting either of products already used 
up by the Germans, or of material, metals, and 
securities which have already been removed to 
Germany. Her renunciation of this first element 
of advantage would therefore be rendered rela- 
tively incomplete were the formula adopted. 

We should note also that there are excellent 
reasons why Germany's renunciation could never 
apply in reality to the territories invaded by her 
to the southeast — to Serbia, at all events. 

The six elements of German advantage forming 

50 



THE DISEASE AND CURE 

the second group of our table are infinitely more 
important to Berlin than the first element — 
which is in any case partially assured by the *no 
indemnity' formula, as we have seen. Although 
they are less directly apparent to the Allies, the 
six elements of the second group are nevertheless 
real, for they depend on incontrovertible military, 
economic, and geographic facts. Now these six 
elements, big with possibilities for the future, de- 
pend entirely on the covert but certain seizure 
which the war has enabled Germany to make of 
her own allies. But this seizure was possible only 
as a result of Serbia's destruction. Serbia, there- 
fore, formed the geographic bulkhead which Ger- 
many had to batter down before her influence 
could predominate over Bulgaria and Turkey. 
The destruction of Serbia was the sine qua non 
of the establishment of Central Pan-Germany, 
which assures the Kaiser of the six principal ele- 
ments of advantage from the war. Moreover, it 
is undeniable that the essential prop of Central 
Pan-Germany has been furnished by the Berlin- 
Bagdad Railroad, of which the most important 
branch, that of Belgrade-Nish-Pirot, runs across 
Serbia. Now, that Germany is fighting for the 
Berlin-Bagdad line, Count Karoly, an ally of Ber- 
lin, admitted, speaking on December 12, 1916, 
in the Hungarian Chamber. (See Le Journal de 
Geneve, December 30, 19 16.) 

To sum up, then, German victory and the 

51 



PA N 'GERM A NY 



fruition of her most important war-advantages 
depend directly on the maintenance of Central 
Pan-Germany, made up of Germany, Austria- 
Hungary, Serbia, Bulgaria, and Turkey. Now 
this maintenance is based on two prime condi- 
tions. 

1. The continuance of Serbia's state of subjec- 
tion to Austro-Germany. 

2. The preservation of the new economic and 
military lines of communication between Berlin 
on the one side and Vienna, Budapest, Sofia, and 
Constantinople on the other. These are, indeed, 
the bonds which have enabled Berlin to reduce to 
practical slavery the Poles, Czechs, Jugo-Slavs, 
and Roumanians, — the adversaries of Pan-Ger- 
many, — and then, without changing any names 
or long-established frontiers, to make Austria- 
Hungary and Bulgaria vassal-states of Berlin, 
and, consequently, active elements of Central 
Pan-Germany. 

Finally, if the present order of things in Central 
Europe is preserved, Germany can maintain the 
Hamburg-Bagdad line. This would be assured 
by the adoption of the formula, 'peace without 
indemnities and annexations.' This is easily 
proved. 

As we have already seen, even if Germany were 
to withdraw in the East and West, the stipulation 
'no indemnities' would permit her to give back 
the territories stolen from Russia, France, Bel- 

52 



THE DISEASE AND CURE 

gium, and Roumania in a condition of complete 
economic, physical, and moral collapse: in a word, 
sucked dry. By reason, too, of the principle of 
* no indemnities, ' the reconstruction of these dev- 
asted countries would be another cause of finan- 
cial exhaustion for France, Russia, Belgium, and 
Roumania, already overburdened with the costs 
of the war. But, even assuming that the Ger- 
mans withdraw from these occupied territories to 
the East and West, — although at present there 
is no reason for seriously considering such an 
eventuality, — no one in his senses could believe 
that they would give up Serbia unless forced to do 
so by the most ruthless methods; for Serbia, by 
reason of her geographic position, is absolutely 
essential to the existence of Central Pan-Ger- 
many, on which, in turn, Germany's vast advan- 
tages depend. 

Of course, it is easy to imagine that Germany 
would give her signature to treaties of settlement, 
even involving Serbia. But treaties signed by 
Germany have no value whatever. * We snap our 
fingers at treaties, ' said the Grand Duke of Meck- 
lenburg-Schwerin to Mr. Gerard, American Am- 
bassador at Berlin. Besides, even supposing that 
Berlin were party to a treaty concerning Serbia, 
this treaty might allow Serbia to exist in theory, 
but not in fact. We must look the situation in the 
face: Serbia is one great graveyard. Her pop- 
ulation has been systematically butchered by the 

53 



PA N - GERM A N Y 



Bulgarians, with German approval. Serbia is ut- 
terly ruined: the Bulgaro-Austro-Germans have 
taken everything. 

Now the principle * no indemnities ' would keep 
Serbia in this terrible and irremediable state of 
misery. It is evident that under these conditions 
the Serbian state would be hopelessly crippled. 
If, therefore, Austria-Germany were to say to the 
Allies, 'Very well; in conformity with the formula 
"no annexations, no indemnities," we are willing 
to recognize Serbia's dependence by treaty, ' who 
would be deceived by this sinister and portentous 
j oke ? Who could believe in the sincerity of a prop- 
osition which, on the face of it, is rendered im- 
possible of fulfillment by the 'no indemnities' 
clause. And what guaranty would the Allies 
hold that Germany, Austria, and Bulgaria would 
withdraw from Serbia at the same time, in view 
of the fact that such a withdrawal, if bona fide^ 
would imply Berlin's renunciation of the whole 
Central Pan-German scheme and its vast attend- 
ant profits? 

To suppose such a thing possible implies a com- 
plete ignorance of the Germanic spirit as it has 
manifested itself since the beginning of history. 
Besides, declarations made by the Germans them- 
selves shaw that they will never recede from their 
position as regards Serbia. As early as Decem- 
ber, 191 6, the Frankfurter Zeitung prepared its 
readers in advance for the ' pacifiist ' tactics about 

54 



THE DISEASE AND CURE 

to be employed — tactics which are now being 
tried out with the help of the Russian anarchists, 
the Kienthal Socialists, and the Pope. 

'Certainly,' said the Frankfort paper, 'if we 
are to make a lasting profit from the military 
situation, both in its favorable and in its less ad- 
vantageous aspects, it is essential that special 
questions should be severally considered in their 
relation to the whole. To-day our point of view 
should be as follows : in the East, the formulation 
of definite demands, and in the West, negotiations 
on a flexible basis. This is not a programme but 
a general line of action. '' Negotiation" is by no 
means a synonym for "renunciation." ' 

This last sentence should be read and pondered 
over by all the Allies. Here we find an absolutely 
clear statement as regards the fate of Serbia, 
whose restoration, by means indicated later, is 
the one thing which can save the world from 
the consequences of the Hamburg-Persian Gulf 
scheme. 

On August 8, 1 91 7, at a banquet given at Lon- 
don for M. Pachitch, the Serbian Premier, Mr. 
Lloyd George acknowledged in decisive terms 
Great Britain's obligations to Serbia — obliga- 
tions which are practically those of the whole 
Entente. 

'What I have already said in the name of the 
British Government regarding Belgium, I here re- 
peat in the name of the same Government regard- 

55 



PA N -GERM A N Y 



ing Serbia. The first condition of peace must be 
its complete and unrestricted restoration. I have 
not come here to make a speech. I have simply 
come to say that, no matter how long the war 
should last, Britain has pledged her honor that 
Serbia shall emerge from the conflict independent 
and completely restored. Moreover, it is not 
only a matter of honor. The security of civiliza- 
tion is directly involved here. In the West, Bel- 
gium has blocked Germany's way, and Serbia in 
the East has been the check of the Central Pow- 
ers. She must continue to mount guard over the 
gateway to the East.' 

To this the Berlin Kreuzzeitung made reply, — 

*Mr. Lloyd George has said that the integral 
restoration of Serbia was an essential condition of 
peace and that British honor was pledged to this 
restoration. The war-aims of England and those 
of Austria-Hungary and Bulgaria are in absolute 
opposition on this point. ' 

The Hamburger Fremdenhlatt, speaking for Ger- 
many as well, added, — 

'Germany and Austria-Hungary have crushed 
Serbia. They alone will decide what disposition 
is to be made of King Peter's former realm. ' 

There can be no illusion here. The formula 
' peace without annexations and indemnities ' can- 
not apply to Serbia, which is the keystone of Pan- 
Germany. 

We now see that, even if the withdrawal of Ger- 

56 



TitE DISEASE AND CURE 

many from the territories of Belgium, France, and 
Russia now held by her were to take place. Cen- 
tral Pan-Germany would remain essentially in- 
tact; and her commercial competition alone would 
suffice to bring about the economic ruin of France, 
England, and Russia. The last-named countries 
would be staggering under their colossal war- 
debts, with no offsetting compensation, whereas 
Germany, thanks to six great elements of advan- 
tage, would find her war-losses more than counter- 
balanced by her profits. What chance would the 
Allied powers, exhausted by a deadly peace, have 
against the thirty million soldiers of Pan-Germany, 
when Berlin, refreshed by a short respite, should 
choose to renew her hold over those western ter- 
ritories which she had temporarily relinquished ? 

Is it not plain what depths of deception lie be- 
neath that formula, * peace without annexations 
and indemnities,' which the Russian Socialists, 
ignorant of the vast advantages accruing to Ger- 
many from the war, have adopted at the sugges- 
tion of Berlin's Leninist agents? Let us look at 
the facts, not at the words. If the formula * peace 
without annexations and indemnities' is accept- 
able to the Germans, it is simply because this for- 
mula, in the opinion of Berlin, will assure the 
maintenance of Central Pan-Germany, which, in 
turn, pledges to Germany the domination of 
Europe and the fulfillment of all other elements of 
the Pan-German scheme. 

57 



PA N -GER MA N Y 



Now, if Central Pan-Germany were to survive, 
thus assuring to Germany all its vast attendant 
advantages, and leaving the Allies to face their 
incalculable war-losses, could such a peace prop- 
erly be called a 'white peace'? Could a peace 
which gave Germany the domination of Europe 
be called a 'drawn game,' a 'peace without annex- 
ations or indemnities'? What sort of 'limping 
peace ' (paix hoiteuse) would permit Prussian mili- 
tarism to hold sway over the 150 million people 
of Pan-Germany instead of the 68 millions of 
1 914, and put 30 million soldiers at Berlin's dis- 
posal? What one of the exhausted states of 
Europe could lift a hand under such conditions? 
This would be no paix hoiteuse; it would be the 
peace of slavery. 

If the Allies are to understand the crucial situa- 
tion which lies before them, they must realize 
that, as Lloyd George said, 'The security of civi- 
lization is directly involved in the independence 
of Serbia. ' But the independence of Serbia can 
never be assured so long as Germany practically 
exercises hegemony over the 50 million people 
of Austria-Hungary, for the Austro-German unit 
of 118 million inhabitants, all subject to Berlin, 
is geographically the mistress of the Balkans. The 
pledge of Serbia's independence, therefore, does not 
lie in Serbia, but north of the Danube. This pledge 
involves the liberation of the peoples under Haps- 
burg domination, — the Poles, Czecho-Slovaks, 

58 



THE DISEASE AND CURE 

Jugo-Slavs, and Roumanians, — which alone can 
permit the creation of a barrier sufficiently strong 
to block the Hamburg-Persian Gulf line, and, at 
the same time, annul the vast advantages that the 
definite establishment of the formidable economic 
and military Pan-German scheme would assure to 
the Kaiser and his people. 

Now it is much easier to devise the destruction 
of Pan-Germany than is generally supposed. This 
fact will become plain as soon as the Allies as a 
whole realize that the freedom of the nationalities 
subject to the Hapsburgs should not only be an 
object of the Entente victory, but also a means to 
that victory. This, however, is a matter which 
needs greater elaboration than I can give it at 
this point. It is discussed at length in the con- 
cluding chapters of this volume. 

In a word, the solution of the Central European 
problem means everything for the Allies. So long 
as it shall remain unsolved, victory will be out 
of their reach. On the other hand, when this one 
point has been settled, all the other special war- 
aims of each of the Allies can be fulfilled with 
ease. 

Assuming now that the problem of Central 
Europe has been solved, could it be said that the 
resulting peace would be 'without annexations 
and indemnities ' ? Plainly not : for this peace, if 
it is to break up forever the autocracies of the 
Central Empires, must, for reasons of nationality, 

59 



PA N -GERM A NY 



change the existing frontiers, which have made 
Austro-German imperialism possible. It might 
involve also certain legitimate reparations. Can 
it be said that peace on the terms of the Allies 
would be a * white peace ' — a * drawn game ' ? 
Again we must say no; for such a peace would 
bring incalculable benefits to the world : the end of 
Prussian militarism, together with the possibility 
of organizing the society of nations under other 
and better conditions. Neither could it be 
called a *paix boiteuse,' for the destruction of 
Prussian militarism would insure to the world a 
long term of rest after the present awful struggle. 

The formulae ' peace without indemnities or an- 
nexations, ' 'white peace,' 'drawn game' and 
*paix boiteuse' have therefore no more connection 
with reality in the event of an Allied victory than 
in that of a German victory. The truth in a nut- 
shell is that, by virtue of the prime importance of 
the Central European problem, either the Allies 
will win victory through the destruction of Pan- 
Germany, or else the Germans, thanks to Central 
Pan-Germany and its economic and military ad- 
vantages, will reduce all Europe to slavery. 
These are the two phases of the dilemma. 

In any case, the fact that expressions without 
any practical application, and hence absurd, are 
constantly made use of in many Allied organs of 
public opinion in the discussion of peace, proves 
beyond doubt that certain Allied circles, poisoned 

60 



THE DISEASE AND CURE 

by the influence of Lenine or Kienthal, have lost 
their sense of realities. With such insidious ene- 
mies as the Germans, this involves a real danger 
for that moral resistance of the Allies which is so 
invaluable. The Americans, through their prac- 
tical common sense, can be of the greatest service 
in helping the European Allies to set it at naught. 

President Wilson, by his message to Russia and 
his Flag Day address, has already done much for 
the common cause by clearly setting forth the 
concrete difficulties to be overcome by the Allies 
if they are to live at liberty. Mr. Gompers has 
done the same by his firm stand regarding the 
Stockholm conference. By energetically oppos- 
ing the pernicious Socialist theoreticians, he has 
supported those real Socialists in France, England, 
and Russia who understand the vital importance 
of killing Prussian militarism. 

May all true Americans continue to speak as 
these two men have done ! The common sense of 
their opinions, spread broadcast among the Euro- 
pean Allies, will help us to neutralize the deadly 
action of those among us who have become intoxi- 
cated by theories. The cause of the Allies is an 
ideal, but the triumph of this ideal can never be 
insured by words; it can be compassed only by 
the accurate knowledge of military and economic 
realities. 



CHAPTER IV 

The Allies and Pan-Germanism 

It is now twenty years that I have worked tire- 
lessly to tear the veil from the Pan-German 
scheme, which my investigations in all parts of 
the world have enabled me to unearth. In spite 
of the positive and abundant proofs of its exist- 
ence which I have been publishing for nineteen 
years, I was unable to persuade the responsible 
authorities in France, Russia, or England, that a 
formidable peril was swiftly and more swiftly 
drawing near. Paris and London were steeped in 
blind pacifist delusions. As for Petrograd, the 
sinister Teutonic influences which, until only yes- 
terday, were at work on the highest personages, 
prevented the great Russian people from knowing 
the real nature of Germany's projects. 

If the Europeans most directly interested in 
knowing the truth were, until the very outbreak 
of hostilities, completely hoodwinked as to the 
true intentions of William II, it is only natural 
that Americans should take some time to realize 
the staggering facts concerning the fantastic and 
odious plan of world-domination so toilsomely 
built up by the government at Berlin. In peace 
times, too, the affairs of old Europe, especially the 

62 



THE DISEASE AND CURE 

intricate tangle of Austro-Hungarian and Balkan 
politics, had no practical interest for so vast and 
remote a nation as the United States. This was 
particularly true of her Western citizens. To-day, 
however, Americans as well as French, British, 
Russians, and Italians, are faced with the obliga- 
tion of mastering the problems of Central Euro- 
pean affairs; for, without exaggeration, it is on 
the proper solution of these problems that the in- 
dependent existence of the United States depends. 
As events have justified the views I have held 
for a score of years, I trust my American readers 
will hold this fact in my favor. If I should seem 
to run counter to the ideas they now hold, they 
should realize that I do so deliberately, in order to 
save priceless time and better serve their own legi- 
timate interests. 



The present situation in Europe is due to two 
factors: first, the almost complete fulfillment by 
the Germans of a plan which they had long been 
preparing with the utmost care; second, the re- 
peated mistakes of the Allies in their carrying on 
of the war — mistakes which alone have permit- 
ted the Germans to consummate their plan almost 
without opposition. 

The Pan-Germanist programme of 191 1 called 
for the establishment of Prussian hegemony over 
a territory of nearly 4,015,000 square kilometres 

63 



PA N - GERM A N Y 



— in other words, besides actual conquest in the 
East and West, it meant the indirect, yet effective 
seizure of Austria-Hungary, the Balkan States, 
and Turkey. At the beginning of 19 17 — before 
the capture of Bagdad by the English and the 
strategic retreat of the German troops in the West 

— the programme had been realized to the extent 
of 3,600,000 square kilometres — that is, in nine- 
tenths of its entirety. 

The basic explanation of this achievement lies 
partly in the fact that, if the Germans are outlaws 
they are very intelligent outlaws, perfectly trained 
for the task of seizing the booty on which they 
have set their hearts; partly in the fact that the 
leaders of the Allies, intelligent and animated by 
the best intentions though they are, have been 
quite unenlightened as to the multiple realities of 
the European tangle, a thoroughgoing knowledge 
of which is absolutely necessary for the conduct 
of the terrible war in progress. 

The proof of this ignorance lies in the recog- 
nized truth that the heads of the European states 
now in league against Germany were, without ex- 
ception, taken by surprise when war broke out. 
Posterity will look on this fact with amazement. 
The governments of the Allies were no better pre- 
pared to direct the war intellectually than were 
their generals to carry it on materially. Now, the 
intellectual prosecution of this war presents un- 
precedented difficulties : it calls uncompromisingly 

64 



THE DISEASE AND CURE 



for a detailed knowledge, not only of matters mili- 
tary and naval, but of geographic, ethnographic, 
economic, and political questions which, by reason 
of the scale of the present conflict, react profound- 
ly on all military operations of general scope. As 
a result of this interpenetration of all the various 
problems, the world-conflict is not, as many peo- 
ple still believe, a purely military struggle, in 
which the mere machinery of war plays a decisive 
r61e. In spite of appearances, mind — that is, the 
intellectual element — dominates the material 
element which, though indispensable, can attain 
full effectiveness only when it is employed in fur- 
therance of a definite plan of action, backed by 
clear thinking ; and such a plan can never be form- 
ulated unless the ethnographic, psychological, 
economic, and geographic factors capable of af- 
fecting every great movement of a general strate- 
gic nature are calculated as carefully as the purely 
military factors. By reason of the potency of 
these many factors — invisible, but very real and 
powerful — it may be said : ' This war is not a 
mere war of armaments — it is a war of political 
science.' 

It is because the strategists of Berlin have long 
recognized this conception of modern warfare; it 
is because they have at their fingers' ends a docu- 
mentation of political science, slowly accumulated 
and of unquestionable worth, that they are in a 
position to meet endless problems as they present 

65 



PA N ' GERM A N Y 



themselves, and to achieve successes against the 
Allies which, on the surface, appear incomprehen- 
sible. 

As for the leaders of the Allies, it seems as if 
many of them are not alive to the element of polit- 
ical science in the war, even at the present mo- 
ment. The reason is simple. The same men who 
ignored the realities of Pan-Germanism before the 
war are, naturally enough, unable to grasp the 
politico-scientific, geographic, economic, ethno- 
graphic, and psychological realities of all Europe 
now that the conflict has burst on us. In the 
realm of the intellectual there can be no improvi- 
sation. To master the politico-scientific elements 
necessary for the prosecution of this war, there is 
need of minds trained by the unremitting applica- 
tion of fifteen or twenty years. Among the lead- 
ers of the Entente no man is to be found who has 
bent his will to such intellectual effort; and the 
pressing problems brought forth by each day give 
no time for minute, deliberate study by the men 
who have succeeded to the seats of power since 
war began. 

II 

The capital mistakes in the prosecution of the 
war committed by the Entente proceed directly 
from the defective equipment of its leaders which 
I have just pointed out. They explain the differ- 
ence in the results obtained by the two groups of 

66 



THE DISEASE AND CURE 

belligerents, although the courage and self-sacri- 
fice of the Allies' soldiers are as great as those of 
the Germans. They explain, too, why the three 
hundred millions of the Allies — this takes no ac- 
count of their colonial resources or of the support 
drawn from trans-oceanic neutrals — have not yet 
succeeded in defeating Germany, which entered 
the war with a population of sixty-eight millions 
and one ally, Austria-Hungary, of whose thirty 
million people three quarters were directly antag- 
onistic to Berlin. 

These capital mistakes made by the Allies are 
as follows. They believed that a friendly agree- 
ment with Bulgaria was possible, although that 
country was treaty-bound to Berlin and Constan- 
tinople long before the war. They cherished illu- 
sions concerning King Constantine, who, above all 
else, was brother-in-law of the Kaiser. They or- 
ganized the Dardanelles expedition, which should 
never have been attempted. Even if this opera- 
tion had been judged technically feasible, its futil- 
ity would have been apparent if the Allies had 
realized — and it was their arch-error not to realize 
— that the strategic key to the whole European 
war was the Danube. The mere occupation by 
the Allies of the territory stretching from Monte- 
negro through Serbia to Roumania, would have 
resolved all the essential problems of the conflict. 
Cut off from the Central Empires, Bulgaria and 
Turkey, whose arsenals were depleted by the Bal- 

67 



PA N - GERM A NY 



kan disturbances of 1912-1913, would have found 
it impossible to make a strong stand against the 
Allies. Turkey, who had been imprudent enough 
to defy them, would have been obliged to open the 
Straits within a very short time, for sheer lack of 
munitions to defend them. This opening of the 
Straits would have been effected by a strong pres- 
sure by the Allies on the south of Hungary. More- 
over, by the same action the Central Empires 
would have been barred from reinforcements and 
supplies from the Orient. Germany, finding her- 
self cut off on land in the South as she was block- 
aded by sea in the North, would have been obliged 
to come to terms. 

Unhappily, the general staffs of the Allies in the 
West were not prepared to grasp the politico-sci- 
entific character of the war, especially the cardinal 
importance of the economic factor. This igno- 
rance remained unenlightened until Roumania was 
crushed in 19 16. As a result, for twenty-seven 
months the Balkans were looked on by the leaders 
in the West as being of only secondary military 
importance. During these twenty-seven months 
the Allies were obsessed by the idea that they 
would vanquish Germany on the Western front 
by a war of attrition. This conviction delayed 
the Saloniki-Belgrade expedition, and when it 
was finally undertaken, it was on too small a scale 
to insure success. Such a grave error would never 
have been committed by the Allied strategists if 

68 



THE DISEASE AND CURE 

they had fully realized that the principal objective 
of the Pan-German scheme, for the attainment of 
which Germany was primarily fighting, was the 
seizure of the Orient. This point of view, how- 
ever, was for a long time ignored, in spite of the 
tireless efforts made by a few to demonstrate its 
vital importance. 

The Austro-Germans, profiting by this basic 
mistake of the civil and military chiefs of the En- 
tente, were able in October-November, 1915, to 
join hands with Bulgaria and Turkey over the 
corpse of Serbia. From that time on, the General 
Staff at Berlin has been profiting by this situation, 
improving it and consolidating it by seizing half 
of Roumania toward the close of 191 6. The direct 
result of the mistakes of the Allies, coupled with 
the methodical procedure of Berlin, has been the 
realization of nine tenths of Pan-Germany. 

This Pan-Germany is composed of two ele- 
ments. First, the great occupied territories taken 
by Germany from Belgium, France, Russia, Ser- 
bia, and Roumania. Second, the practical seizure 
effected by her at the expense of her own allies: 
Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria, and Turkey; for, as a 
matter of fact, the Quadruple Alliance is nothing 
but a great illusion carefully fostered by the Kai- 
ser for the purpose of concealing the true situa- 
tion from the neutrals — particularly the United 
States, which was then in that category. If one 
wishes to see things as they are, one must realize 

69 



PA N - GERM A N Y 



that Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria, and Turkey are 
not the allies — that is, the equals — of Germany. 
These three states are practically the vassals of 
Berlin, in whose sight they count for scarcely more 
than Saxony or Bavaria. The principal proof of 
this state of affairs lies in the fact that the Kaiser 
wields an uncontested supremacy from Hamburg 
to the British front at Bagdad. 

Since the beginning of hostilities there has been 
a formidable extension of Prussian militarism. At 
first, it held in its grasp only the sixty-eight mil- 
lion people of the German Empire. By April, 
191 5, it had extended and organized its influence 
among the thirty millions of Austro-Hungarians, 
who until that time had taken orders from their 
own independent military chiefs. After October- 
November, 1915, — the date of Serbia's downfall, 
— the Prussian system reached out to Bulgaria 
and Turkey. By taking account of these exten- 
sions and adding together the populations of the 
territories occupied by Germany, together with 
those of her infatuated allies, one finds that to-day 
Prussian militarism no longer controls sixty-eight 
million souls, as at the beginning of the war, but 
about one hundred and seventy-six million Euro- 
pean and Ottoman subjects. 

This is the brutal, overwhelming fact which 
Americans must face if they wish to learn the sole 
solution of the war which will assure to them, as 
well as to the rest of the world, a durable peace. 

70 



THE DISEASE AND CURE 



The following figures will show how the three 
groups of the population of Pan-Germany were 
divided at the beginning of 191 7: — 



1. The Masters 

Germans 

2. The Vassals 

Magyars 

Bulgars 

Turks 

3. The Slaves 

French 

Belgians 

Alsatians, Lorrainers 

Danes 

Poles, Lithuanians, 

Ruthenians 

Czechs 

Jugo-Slavs 

Roumanians 

Italians 

Armenians 

Levantines 

Ottoman Greeks 

Arabs 

Total 



10,000,000 
5,000,000 
6,000,000 

(about) 3,000,000 " 

7,500,000 

1,500,000 

200,000 

22,000,000 

5,500,000 

8,500,000 

11,000,000 

8,000,000 

800,000 

2,000,000 

2,000,000 

2,000,000 

8,000,000 



73,000,000 



21,000,000 



82,000,000 



176,000,000 



To sum up, seventy-three million Germans rule 
over twenty-one million vassals and eighty-two 
million slaves, — Latin, Slavic, Semitic, belonging 
to thirteen different nationalities, — who are 
bearing the most cruel and unjustifiable yoke that 
the world has ever known. 

It is undeniable, moreover, that each extension 
of Prussian militarism over a new territory has en- 
abled Germany to prolong the struggle by obtain- 
ing new supplies of food, new reinforcements to 

71 



PA N ' GERM A N Y 



press into her service and territory to exploit, new 
civil populations, whose labor is made use of even 
in works of a military nature. As a result, the 
technical problem now confronting the Allies in 
Europe is, through the mistakes of their former 
leaders, infinitely more complicated than at the 
outbreak of hostilities. 

To-day Berlin, by means of Prussian terrorism 
methodically and pitilessly employed, disposes of 
the military and economic resources of one hun- 
dred and seventy-six million people, occupying a 
strategic position in the centre of Europe which is 
all to her profit. It is this very state of things, 
founded on the slavery of eight-two millions of 
human beings, which is intolerable. 

Ill 

Many times, and rightly, the Allies have de- 
clared that it was not their object to exterminate 
the German people and bring about their political 
extinction. On the other hand, it is just and es- 
sential to proclaim that Pan-Germany must be 
destroyed. On this depends the liberty, not only 
of Europe, but of the whole world. This is the 
point of view which, in the crisis of to-day, should 
prevail with Americans, for the following reasons. 
Suppose that Pan-Germany were able to maintain 
itself in its present position. It cannot be denied 
that its territory contains considerable latent mili- 
tary and economic resources, as well as strategic 

72 



THE DISEASE AND CURE 

positions of world-significance, like the Darda- 
nelles. If these resources were freely exploited 
and developed to their highest pitch by the relent- 
less organizing spirit of Berlin, Prussianized Pan- 
Germany, dividing Europe in two, w^ould domi- 
nate the Continent, uncontestably and indefinitely, 
by means of her crushing strength. France, Rus- 
sia, England, Italy, ceasing to exist as great pow- 
ers, could only submit to Germany's will. And 
Berlin, mistress of Europe, would soon realize, not 
merely the Hamburg-Bagdad and Antwerp-Bag- 
dad railways, but the Brest-Bagdad line as well; 
for Brest has long been coveted secretly by the 
Pan-Germanists, who would make of it the great 
military and commercial transatlantic port of 
Prussianized Europe. 

Moreover, if Germany achieved the ruin of the 
Allies, it is entirely probable that the General 
Staff of William II would launch a formidable ex- 
pedition against the United States without delay, 
in order to allow her no time to organize herself 
against the Prussian tyranny hypothetically dom- 
inating Europe. Even if Berlin felt it necessary 
to defer this step, Americans would none the less 
be forced to prepare for the inevitable struggle and 
to serve an apprenticeship to militarism which 
would be odious to them. If Americans, then, see 
things as they really are, and perceive the dangers 
to which they are pledging their future, they will 
be convinced that they, as much as Europeans, 

73 



PA N - GERM A N Y 



have a vital interest in the annihilation of Pan- 
Germanism. In a word, it is clear that any peril 
accruing to the United States from Europe can 
arise only from so formidable a power as Pan-Ger- 
many, and not from a Germany kept within her 
legitimate frontiers, and forced to behave herself, 
by the balance of other powers. 

We must also realize that the moral considera- 
tions at stake are a matter of the liveliest interest , 
to the United States. Can republican America 
allow the feudal spirit which kindled the torch of 
this war to triumph over the world? This spirit 
is made up of the following elements: the feudal- 
ism of the Prussian Junkers, chief prop and stay 
of the Hohenzollerns ; the feudalism of the great 
Austrian land-owners; the feudalism of the Mag- 
yar grandees, whose caste-spirit is precisely the 
same as that of the Prussian lordlings; and the 
Turkish feudalism of Enver Bey and his friends. 
In other words, this four-ply feudal spirit which is 
the basis of Pan-Germany is in radical and abso- 
lute opposition to the democratic spirit of the 
modern world. Granting for a moment that Ger- 
many were victorious, Russia, after a frightful 
reign of anarchy, would be forced to submit once 
more to the yoke of autocracy. As for the peoples 
of Western Europe, reduced to worse than slavery, 
they could only renounce their dearest ideals — 
the ideals for which they have shed their blood for 
centuries. 



74 



THE DISEASE AND CURE 

The present war, then, is manifestly a struggle 
d outrance between democracy and feudalism. To 
Americans as well as to Europeans falls the task, 
not only of preserving their corporeal independ- 
ence, but of saving our common civilization. This 
can be accomplished only by the destruction of 
Pan-Germanism. 

It is plain that Berlin, failing so far to crush the 
Allies completely, is bending every effort to main- 
taining Pan-Germany in its present position, so 
that, after peace is declared, it may crystallize and 
swiftly develop its full power. When, in Decem- 
ber, 191 6, President Wilson requested the bellig- 
erents to make known the causes for which they 
were fighting, the government of Berlin issued no 
definite statement. The reason for this attitude 
is plain. If Berlin still hopes to enforce her out- 
rageous pretensions by her immense military 
power, she cannot possibly put down her terms in 
black and white, in a document subject to general 
perusal, without instantly calling down on her 
head the blazing reprobation of the civilized 
world. 

The Allies, on the contrary, replied to Mr. Wil- 
son's question easily and with precision. 

The universal attention drawn to this reply 
has entailed advantages and disadvantages. By 
the very nature of things, the Allies definitely an- 
nounced that the smaller nationalities in Turkey, 
Austria-Hungary, and the Balkans must be set 

75 



PA N - GERM A N Y 



free, thus implying a radical opposition to the 
Hamburg-Persian Gulf idea. This has enabled 
Berlin, for one thing, to bind her accomplices at 
Vienna, Budapest, Sofia, and Constantinople more 
closely, if possible, to her cause, and also to gal- 
vanize for a still longer period the forces of the 
German people, who are resolved to endure the 
bitterest suffering in order to insure, after peace 
comes, the immense advantages accruing from 
the fait accompli of Pan-Germanism. 

By way of compensation for this, the publicity 
given the reply of the Allies has accomplished 
two excellent ends. First of all, it has permitted 
every one to see that the common purpose of the 
Allies is to solve the Central European problem, 
which, as a matter of fact, is not only of European, 
but of universal interest, since such a solution 
puts a quietus on German dreams of world-dom- 
ination. This publicity, too, has made it possible 
to compare the principles invoked by the Allies in 
their peace-terms with those of President Wilson, 
proclaimed in his message to the Senate on Janu- 
ary 22, 191 7, and to establish the fact that these 
principles are identical. 

IV 

The reason for this harmonious point of view 
lies in the adoption of the principle of nationality 
by the Allies and by President Wilson as the fun- 
damental basis for the reconstruction of the Eu- 

76 



THE DISEASE AND CURE 

rope of to-morrow. Because of this point in com- 
mon, it is evident that the war measures of the 
AUies and the pacific endeavors of Mr. Wilson 
have in view the same general geographic solu- 
tions of the problem of organizing Europe on the 
lines of a durable peace. This is a fact of the ut- 
most importance, as I tried to show with the aid 
of maps in an article in L' Illustration, of Febru- 
ary 2^, 1917. Allies and Americans, then, may 
join hands and press resolutely ahead, — especi- 
ally since the Russian Revolution has come to 
pass, — for, with a common ideal, their general 
practical solutions for meeting this formidable 
crisis cannot but be identical. 

In order to understand fully the seriousness of 
the situation, one must distinguish clearly be- 
tween the moral position of the Allies and the 
strategic positions of the two groups of belliger- 
ents. The moral position of the Allies is excellent. 
After Washington and Peking broke with Berlin, 
and especially after the magnificent revolution 
in Russia, after Bagdad fell and a fraction of the 
invaded French territory was won back, the 
spirit of the Allies was all that could be desired. 
But even while recognizing the excellence of this 
moral strength and its potentialities of success, 
we must first of all consider the general strategic 
situation. The events of this war have plainly 
shown that, unfortunately, brute force in the 
service of the lowest passions can prevail over 

77 



PA N -GERM A N Y 



the holiest rights, the purest aspirations. Since 
August, 1 914, incontestable rights have been vio- 
lated, and noble nations martyrized. 

Let us face the cruel truth and say: the Allies 
may yet be completely vanquished if certain de- 
velopments come about, or if new strategic mis- 
takes are added to those portentous ones which 
nearly lost them the fight, in spite of the righteous- 
ness of their cause and their immense, if badly em- 
ployed, latent resources. If we wish, then, really 
to understand the crisis of to-day and the mighty 
peril which still menaces the world's liberty, we 
must not shrink from meeting the realities of the 
military situation. We must be ready to face the 
most serious developments that can be conceived. 
Such an attitude implies, not pessimism, but that 
readiness for the worst which lies at the root of 
military wisdom. 

Let us now accept the following facts. The 
troops of France are beginning to be exhausted. 
The iniquitous administration of the Tsar had 
seriously compromised the provisioning of the 
Russian army with food and munitions. In that 
vast country, where conditions were ripe for ideal- 
istic extremists to guide the revolution toward 
pacifism or anarchy, there are alarming symp- 
toms of the prevalence of the latter condition. 
The swarming agents of Germany are working 
there without respite. If their efforts shall finally 
succeed, the strength of Russia will swiftly dis- 

78 



THE DISEASE AND CURE 

solve. This would practically insure a German 
victory, for, with the Russian armies demoralized, 
all the forces of Pan-Germany could be flung 
against the Franco- British front. Moreover, if, 
from the moral standpoint, the Berlin govern- 
ment is universally to be despised, the same can- 
not be said about her general technical military 
ability, whose elements are as follows. 

Berlin is incontestably mistress of Pan-Ger- 
many — that is, she has absolute disposal of vast 
resources in men and in the manifold products of 
a great territory with a population of one hun- 
dred and seventy-six millions. The Kaiser's 
Great General Staff, whose intellectual resource- 
fulness cannot be questioned, is quick to make the 
most of every lesson taught by the war. The 
annual levies of men from the various territories 
of Pan-Germany certainly outnumber the losses 
sustained each year by her troops. It is therefore, 
in my opinion, a grave error to assume, as the 
Allies have done, that the Germans can be beaten 
by mere attrition of their forces. By organizing 
under one uniform system the soldiery furnished 
by the many different countries of Pan-Germany, 
Prussian militarism has unquestionably given its 
troops a cohesion and a unity unknown to the 
vassal-allies of Germany before the war. This 
state of affairs has undoubtedly added to the 
military effectiveness of the vast armies which 
take their orders from Berlin. 

79 



PA N - GERM A N Y 



The German military authorities most advan- 
tageously employed the respites given them by 
the strategic errors of the Allies. Never have the 
broad lines of trenches, the far-flung battle fron- 
tiers, been more powerfully guarded than now. 
Never have the Germans had more abundanf 
stores of munitions. Never has the network ot 
railways covering the length and breadth of Pan- 
Germany been so complete. Never has the Great 
General Staff, making full use of its central posi- 
tion, been better able to concentrate on any front 
with lightning speed. For these reasons, it is my 
opinion that we may safely say that never before 
has the Berlin government, from a military point 
of view, been so strong. The various statistics 
which justify such a conclusion are, I think, to be 
relied on. Even supposing them to be exaggerat- 
ed, it is much better to run the risk of overesti- 
mating the enemy's strength than to underesti- 
mate it. Many of the Allies' mistakes sprang from 
neglect of this axiom. 



CHAPTER V 
Military Operations 



As a prelude to the further consideration of cer- 
tain aspects of the world-war, I should like, if I 
may, to quote a few paragraphs which I printed 
early last summer, by way of forecast, and which 
events have not wholly belied. 

Let us now attempt to forecast the German 
military plans for 191 7. For some weeks persist- 
ent reports have been telling of their tremendous 
preparations for hurling an offensive against the 
Russian front. As for the Franco- British front in 
the West, it was stated that the General Staff at 
Berlin would be glad to hold things stationary on 
that side until, after winning the victory on which 
they count in the East, they are free to devote 
their attentions to the occidental theatre. This 
project, of course, cannot be confirmed; but the 
voluntary shortening of the western line by the 
Germans would lend color to its probability. 
Moreover, such a plan would coincide perfectly 
with the present interests of Berlin, with the 
habitual methods of the Kaiser's General Staff, 
with the broad Pan-Germanist scheme, and with 
the personal preferences of Marshal von Hin- 

81 



PA N 'GERM A NY 



denburg. It is natural also that the Germans 
should avail themselves of the sinister and undeni- 
able effects of the Russian imperial administra- 
tion on the army and civil population of the coun- 
try before the new government at Petrograd has 
time to repair the all-too-abundant harm that 
has been wrought. 

We must cherish no illusions. As long as it can 
dispose of the vast resources of Pan-Germany, 
which, to my thinking, are still taken too lightly 
by the Allies; while the results of the Russian 
Revolution are still uncertain ; while the reorgani- 
zation of the Muscovite armies still remains un- 
completed, the government at Berlin, in spite of 
its serious problems connected with the food- 
supply, is still convinced that it can win a decisive 
military victory by dealing with its adversaries 
one by one. And so we should foresee that the 
German General Staff will meet its problems in 
succession. 

It seems probable, then, that it will follow the 
basic principles of warfare and concentrate all the 
forces at its disposal against the weakest front. 
This, without question, is the Roumano-Russian 
line. Its great extent, together with the formid- 
able development of the German railway system, 
— infinitely superior to that of the Russians, — 
makes it easier to introduce the element of surprise, 
which is of capital importance for swift, decisive 
victory. The Russians, too, are certainly less well 

82 



THE DISEASE AND CURE 

provided with munitions of war than the Franco- 
British troops; and the Germans have succeeded 
in further weakening them by means of the ter- 
rible explosions recently engineered by their spies 
at Archangel. As a result of the execrable ad- 
ministration of the former government, the food 
situation in Russia is most critical, while the rev- 
olutionists are not yet sure of the reorganization 
of the military forces. The Germans, therefore, 
have an unquestionable interest in profiting with- 
out delay by this state of affairs. 

A vigorous offensive on the Eastern front is 
also in harmony with the Pangermanist plan, 
which for twenty-five years has looked forward to 
the seizure by Germany of Riga, Little Russia, 
and Odessa. And a German success in the south 
of Russia would be big with economic, naval, 
military, and moral consequences of world-im- 
port. The Germans would become masters of the 
rich and boundless wheat-lands of Little Russia, 
which, from the midst of their food-problems, 
they watch with greedy eyes. The capture of 
Odessa and the complete conquest of the Black 
Sea, by means of transports (sent in large num- 
bers down the Danube, thus permitting surprise 
attacks at vital points), would end in the loss of 
the Crimea and, probably, the fall of the Caucasus 
into the hands of the Turco-Germans. The Brit- 
ish, then, could no longer hold out at Bagdad. 
Freed by such successes from all immediate fear 

83 



PA N -GERM A N Y 



of Russia, the Germans could then turn in enor- 
mous strength against the Balkan front of the 
Allies. Under these hypothetical conditions, one 
may assume that the Allied army north of Salon- 
iki, demoralized by the Russian reverses, would 
be taken prisoners or driven into the sea. 

These various operations in the East vigorous- 
ly taken in hand, as the General Staff at Ber- 
lin knows so well how to do, would require four or 
five months for their execution. This interval of 
time, combined with the depressing moral effect 
brought about by the supposed German victories, 
would act, as it were, as an automatic preparation 
for the final Teutonic offensive on the Western 
front. It must be remembered that during these 
four or five months the submarine warfare, pur- 
sued more and more ruthlessly, would consider- 
ably impede neutral navigation and decimate the 
tonnage of the Franco- British merchant marine. 
The food-problems and the war-expenditure of the 
Allies would be enormously increased. Even if 
their pressure has forced the Kaiser to evacuate 
a considerable portion of France and Belgium, 
the importance of this retreat would be only rela- 
tive, for it would be temporary. Following our 
hypothesis, then, if Russia were beaten, the army 
of Saloniki driven into the sea, and the food crisis 
in the West intensified, the moral depression and 
discouragement among the soldiers and civilians 
of France would be most profound. Under the 

84 



THE DISEASE AND CURE 

given material and psychological conditions, the 
concentration of all the Pan-German forces on 
the Western front would probably permit them to 
break through. This would spell ruin for France 
and for England as well, and assure that decisive 
German victory which would mean the mastery of 
Europe. 

If this theoretical German plan is to be accom- 
plished in 191 7, however, the general technical 
situation in Europe must remain much as it stands 
at present. No new power capable of making it- 
self felt on the battle-field must come to the sup- 
port of the Allies. It is necessary, then, that the 
scheme be carried out in 191 7, before the Russian 
Revolution, which is essentially favorable to the 
Allies, has time to repair the damage done by the 
former regime, and before the United States, 
realizing that it is to their vital interest to take 
part directly and without delay in the war on the 
Continent, are ready to do so effectively. 

The tactics of Berlin, after being forced to a 
diplomatic rupture with Washington, consist in 
doing everything to avoid actual blows with the 
United States, while keeping up a vigorous sub- 
marine campaign, and in making frantic efforts 
to effect a miscarriage of American military pre- 
paration — especially as regards sending rein- 
forcements to Europe. In pursuance of this 
scheme, Berlin instructed Vienna to send Wash- 
ington a dilatory answer concerning submarine 

85 



PA N -GERM A NY 



warfare, in order to avoid a diplomatic break and 
thus gain time. This procedure was specifically 
intended to make America believe that Austro- 
Hungary can act independently of Germany. 
And so, by virtue of this delusion, William II veils 
the existence of that Pan-Germany whose reality, 
for the sake of his plans, must not be revealed 
until the latest possible moment. 

II 

If the programme for 191 7, which we have good 
reason to attribute to the Germans, were sub- 
stantially carried out (and, after all, this is not 
impossible), in six to eight months the United 
States would find themselves face to face with 
a Germany controlling the resources, not only of 
the present-day Pan-Germany, but of all Europe. 
And, Americans, do not think your turn would be 
long in coming. Do not take it for granted that 
the German people, worn out by the endless hor- 
rors of war, would cry to their masters, ' Peace at 
any price ! ' The German people, as I know them, 
filled with enthusiasm by a victory that would be 
without parallel in the history of the world, mad- 
dened by incalculable plunder, would follow the 
lead of their Emperor more blindly than ever. 
The pride and ambition of the Kaiser and his 
General Staff are so prodigious that, unless all 
signs fail, they would give the United States no 
chance to organize against a Prussianized Europe. 

86 



THE DISEASE AND CURE 

In eight or ten months, after new advances had 
been made to Japan, who would be isolated by the 
defeat of her allies in Europe, and with the aid 
of the German- Mexicans and German-Americans 
whose mission, as every one knows, is to paralyze 
by every possible means the military organization 
of the United States, it would be possible to look 
for ruthless action against America by the Pan 
germanized forces of Europe. 

The prediction of such extraordinary eventuali- 
ties will no doubt seem fantastic and improbable 
to many of my American readers. I beg them, 
nevertheless, to consider them seriously. As a 
matter of fact, if we consider all that has been 
achieved by the Germans since August, 19 14, the 
events which I have forecast are much less amaz- 
ing than those indicated by me in 1901, when, in 
my book V Europe et la Question d'Autriche au 
Seuil du XXe Steele, I unmasked the Pan-Ger- 
man plot, which was then looked on as a mere 
phantasmagoria — although as a matter of fact 
it was so real that it now stands almost completely 
fulfilled. 

You Americans, then, should learn your lesson 
from the past. Your own best interest lays on 
you the obligation to face facts which may at 
present seem improbable, and to prepare your- 
selves without losing a day for meeting the grav- 
est perils. As the situation now stands, a delay 
in making a decision may involve disastrous re- 

87 



PA N - GERM A N Y 



suits. For instance, the three weeks of parleying 
indulged in by the Allies before deciding to send 
troops to Serbia were of the utmost significance. 
Those three lost weeks simply prevented the 
Allies from achieving victory, and resulted in an 
unthinkable prolongation of the war. 

The surest, the most economical way for Amer- 
icans to avoid excessive risks is to prepare at once 
for the severest kind of struggle, on the hypothe- 
sis that the Allies may sustain grave reverses. 
Everything favors concerted action by the United 
States and the Allies. Their material and moral 
interests are identical, and, in doing away with 
autocracy, Russia removed the well- justified dis- 
trust felt in the United States for the land of the 
Tsars. As we have seen, a German victory over 
Russia, involving the fall of Saloniki and, later, 
the breaking of the Western front, would be un- 
imquestionably the most dangerous eventuality 
imaginable for the future security of the United 
States. American interest therefore demands, 
not only that support should be given France 
and Great Britain, but that the United States 
should hasten to help the Russians, who will prob- 
ably be called on first to meet the onslaught. 

On reflection, perhaps, Americans may even 
find it worth while to give further thought to an 
idea which, a few months ago, would have seemed 
preposterous to them. Since President Wilson 
cherishes the ideal of the brotherhood of nations, 

88 



THE DISEASE AND CURE 

— a noble conception, but one which can be 
realized only after Prussian militarism is ground 
in the dust, after the Hapsburgs and the Hohen- 
zollerns have gone the way of the Romanoffs, — 
why should not this world-crisis provide an op- 
portunity for intimate co5peration between the 
United States and Japan? 

Even if Americans were to admit the necessity 
of so doing, it will be long before they are in the 
position to throw into the European conflict those 
reinforcements which, by exercising a decisive 
influence, would hasten the end of the mad 
slaughter. At the present moment Japan alone, 
outside of Europe, has at her disposal a trained 
army capable of taking the field at once. Every- 
thing considered. President Wilson might well de- 
cide that the interests of humanity called for the 
intervention of Japan in Europe. If he succeeded 
in convincing Tokyo of this, he would stand out 
as the great, decisive figure of the war. From the 
technical point of view, it is certain that victory 
for the Allies calls for a simultaneous concentric 
attack on all the fronts of Pan-Germany. For 
that reason, Japanese troops on the Russian line, 
at Bagdad, Alexandre tta, and Saloniki, would 
furnish the Eastern positions of the Allies with 
the supplementary strength that they need to 
achieve decisive results and so hasten the end of 
the whole war. 

Let me again urge my point that the line of 

89 



PA N- GERM A N Y 



action morally and materially most profitable to 
the United States is that which, by achieving 
the total destruction of Pan-Germany and Prus- 
sian militarism, will terminate the horrible car- 
nage once for all. This is the moral pointed by the 
past. If the Allies had undertaken the Saloniki- 
Belgrade expedition in the beginning of 19 15, the 
war would have ended a year ago. If you, Amer- 
icans, had cast your lot with us a year ago, it 
would be ending about now. If you act to-day, 
with all your energies, and especially if you com- 
pass the Japanese intervention, you will save 
the lives of millions of men who, without your 
military and diplomatic support, will surely be 
sacrificed. 

The real problem for America is clearly to dis- 
cern Pan-Germany lurking beneath the Quad- 
ruple Alliance of the Central Powers, and to de- 
cide to strike this Pan-Germany quick and hard. 
This is the one and only way to foil the odious 
Prussian militarism which threatens the liberty 
of the world. 



CHAPTER VI 

Pan-Germany's Strength and Weakness 

In April last, when it was generally believed in 
Paris that the Revolution at Petrograd made cer- 
tain the end of German influence over the vast 
former Empire of the Tsars, I wrote the study 
referred to on page 8i and reprinted here as 
Chapters IV and V.^ I then said, [In Russia] 
'Where conditions were ripe for idealistic extrem- 
ists to guide the revolution toward pacifism or 
anarchy, there are alarming symptoms of the 
prevalence of the latter condition. The swarm- 
ing agents of Germany are working there without 
respite. If their efforts succeed, the strength of 
Russia will swiftly dissolve. ' 

Unhappily, events have justified this word of 
caution in only too full measure. The efforts of 
the Allies to reorganize the forces of Russia have 
thus far met with small success. It is a task to 
which their duty and their interests alike make it 
imperative for them to devote themselves with 
their utmost strength. But we must cherish no 
illusions. The rebuilding of the forces of Russia 
must inevitably be a long, arduous, and doubt- 
ful undertaking. It is advisable, therefore, to 

^See Atlantic Monthly, June, 1917, p. 721. 

91 



PA N -GERM A N Y 



consider, at the same time, if there is not some 
method of making up for the Russian default by 
bringing into play, to further the victory of the 
Entente, certain powerful forces which the Allies 
have not thus far even thought of employing. 

Now, these forces and this method do exist; 
but in order to enforce clearly their reality, their 
importance, and the way to make use of them, I 
must, in the first place, call attention to a funda- 
mental and enduring error of the Allies, set forth 
the extraordinary credulity with which they allow 
themselves to be ensnared in the never-ending in- 
trigues of Berlin, and describe the principal shifts 
which Germany employs, with undeniable clever- 
ness, to annul to an extraordinary degree the effect 
of the Allies' efforts. These essential causes of 
mistaken judgment being eliminated, we shall then 
be able to understand what the existing forces are 
which will enable the Entente to make up with 
comparative rapidity for the Russian default, and 
to contribute with remarkable efficiency to the 
destruction of Pan-Germany. 



THE FUNDAMENTAL AND ENDURING ERROR OF 
THE ALLIES 

For three years past events have notoriously 
proved that the concrete Pangermanist scheme, 
developed between 1895 and 19 11, has been fol- 

92 



THE DISEASE AND CURE 

lowed strictly by the Germans since the outbreak 
of hostilities. Now, the diplomacy of the Entente 
is devised as if there were no Pangermanist 
scheme. 

This is the source of all the vital strategical and 
diplomatic errors of the Entente — consequences 
of the failure to understand the German military 
and political manoeuvring. Here is proof derived 
from recent events — one of many which it would 
be possible to allege. 

When it was announced a few weeks ago that 
Austria would play an apparently preponderating 
part in the reconstitution of Poland, a very large 
number of newspapers in the Entente countries 
decided that * it is perfectly evident that the Aus- 
trian policy has carried the day in Poland.' A 
similar deduction has led Allied readers to believe 
that Vienna has prevailed over Berlin. The re- 
sult has been to strengthen the faith of those who 
deem it possible to impose terms on Berlin through 
the channel of Vienna, and even to induce Austria 
to conclude a separate peace. Now, to convey 
such an impression as this to Allied public opin- 
ion is to lead it completely astray. If the Haps- 
burgs are playing an apparently predominant 
part in Poland it is solely because that part, as we 
are about to prove, is assigned to them by the 
Pangermanist scheme. 

I^/. In the pamphlet, Pan-Germany and Central 
Europe about 1950, published in Berlin in 1895, 

93 



PA N - GERM A N Y 



which contains the whole Pangermanist plan, we 
find the following : — 

'Poland and Little Russia [the kingdom to be 
established at Russia's expense] will agree to have 
no armies of their own, and will receive in their 
fortresses German or Austrian garrisons. In Po- 
land, as well as in Little Russia, the postal and 
telegraph services and the railways will be in Ger- 
man hands. ' 

For twenty-two years the Pangermanist scheme 
has been followed up. Tannenberg, in his book. 
Greater Germany, which appeared in 191 1, — a 
work whose exceptional importance has been dem- 
onstrated by events, and which, in all probability, 
was inspired officially, — prophesies very dis- 
tinctly, — 

' The new kingdom of Poland is made up of the 
former Russian portion, of the basin of the Vistula, 
and of Galicia, and forms a part of the new Austria. ' 

These most unequivocal words appeared, it will 
be admitted, three years before the war. Now Le 
Temps of September 7, 191 7, said on the authority 
of the Polish agency at Berne, which is subsidized 
by Austria and publishes news communicated to 
it by the government of Vienna, — 

'Germany would take such portion of Russian 
Poland as she needs to rectify her "strategic 
frontiers." This portion would include almost a 
tenth of Russian Poland. The rest would be an- 
nexed to Austria. The Emperor Charles would 

94 



THE DISEASE AND CURE 

thereupon issue a decree of annexation of Russian 
Poland to Galicia, under the title of Kingdom of 
Poland. . . . The dual monarchy would then be- 
come triple, and the first result of this readjust- 
ment would be to compel all Poles to undergo mili- 
tary service in the Austrian armies. All the dep- 
uties representing Galicia would automatically 
leave the Austrian Reichsrath, to enter the new 
Polish Parliament, which would give the German 
parties in the Austrian Parliament a certain ab- 
solute majority.' 

This result of the present action of Vienna and 
Berlin, foreshadowed by the Temps apparently 
for the near future, has been in view for twenty- 
two years. In fact, in the fundamental pamphlet 
of 1895, already quoted, it is said that * Galicia and 
the Bukowina will he excluded from the Austrian 
monarchy. They will form the nucleus of the king- 
doms of Poland and Little Russia . . . which, how- 
ever, may be united, hy the personal link of the 
sovereign, to the reigning house of Hapshurg. ' 

So it is that, very far from having forced any- 
thing on Germany in relation to Poland, Charles I 
of Hapsburg has shown that he submits with do- 
cility to the Pangermanist decrees, since he gives 
his entire adhesion to the carrying into effect of 
the plan followed at Berlin from 1895 to 19 14 — 
for nineteen years before hostilities began! The 
actual fact, therefore, is the direct antithesis of 
what the conclusions of many Allied newspapers 

95 



PA N -GERM A N Y 



have, of course in absolute good faith, permitted 
their readers to believe. Now everything goes to 
show that this error arises solely from a technical 
ignorance of the Pangermanist scheme, of which 
the guiding spirits of the Entente seem to have no 
more conception than a considerable portion of 
the Allied press. However, if they wish for vic- 
tory, the Allies must inevitably act in systematic 
opposition to the Pangermanist scheme. They 
cannot therefore dispense with the necessity of 
becoming thoroughly familiar with it. 

Nor is there any more reliable guide, since the 
events that have taken place for three years past 
have demonstrated the absolute accuracy of the 
Pangermanist outgivings anterior to the war. 
Knowing what the Germans are going to do, we 
can deduce therefrom the best means of opposing 
it. If this method had been followed, no serious 
error would have been committed by the Allies. 
They would have understood that Germany was 
making war in behalf of the Hamburg-Persian 
Gulf enterprise, — which was intended to supply 
her with the instruments of world-domination; 
that, consequently, the Danube front, which the 
Allies held, must be retained at whatever cost, 
which would have been, comparatively speaking, 
very easy, if they had recognized in time this im- 
perative necessity. 

Now, if the Allies had retained their hold of the 
Danube front, the war would have been over 

96 



THE DISEASE AND CURE 

nearly two years ago. It is, in fact, solely because 
they did not grasp the necessity of thus holding it, 
that the Germans have been able to carry out 
their Eastern plan and to constitute the Pan- 
Germany which must now be destroyed in order 
to avoid the defeat of civilization, and eventual 
slavery. To effect this destruction is infinitely 
easier than is generally believed, on the condition 
that the most is made of the causes tending to the 
internal dissolution of Pan-Germany. But, to 
understand these available causes, familiarity 
with the Pangermanist scheme is indispensable. 
It is urgently necessary, therefore, to put an end 
to this intolerable condition, namely, that, while 
the Allies have an extraordinary opportunity to 
become accurately acquainted with the whole pro- 
gramme of procedure at Berlin, as contained in a 
multitude of German documents, — that is to 
say, the real objects of Germany in the war, — 
while they have this opportunity, they go on act- 
ing and arguing as if that programme did not 
exist. It is this condition which proves most clear- 
ly the extraordinary and enduring credulity which 
the Allies exhibit in face of the endless German 
intrigues. 

II 

THE CREDULITY OF THE ALLIES 

The heads of the Allied governments, moved 
by the best intentions but completely taken by 

97 



PA N - GERM A N Y 



surprise by the war, are carrying it on far too 
much in accordance with the ordinary procedure 
of times of peace — negotiations, declarations, 
speeches. Notably in the gigantic palaver into 
which Maximalist Russia has developed, men 
fancy that they have acted when they have talk- 
ed. The events of three years of war prove con- 
clusively that the Boches, turning to their profit 
the predilection of the Allied leaders for verbal 
negotiations and manifestations, — a predilection 
complicated by ignorance of the Pangermanist 
scheme, — have succeeded in nullifying to an ex- 
traordinary degree the effect of the sacrifices of the 
Entente. 

Until the Russian Revolution, Berlin brought 
to bear on the diplomacy of the Entente those 
allies of Germany who were then regarded by the 
Entente as neutrals. Indeed, the declarations of 
Radoslavoff, confirmed by the recently published 
Greek White Book, have conclusively established 
the fact that the agreements between Germany, 
Bulgaria, Turkey, and King Constantine, in con- 
templation of this war, antedated the opening of 
hostilities — that certain ones of them go back as 
far as April, 19 14. Now, it is known that the En- 
tente diplomacy had no knowledge of this situa- 
tion, and that it allowed itself to be hoodwinked 
for three months by the Turks, for thirteen months 
by the Bulgarians, for thirty months by the King 
of Greece, the Kaiser's brother-in-law, and even, 

98 



THE DISEASE AND CURE 

to a certain degree, down to a very recent period, 
by Charles I of Hapsburg, certain Allied diplo- 
matists having persisted in coddling the chimera 
of a peace with Austria against Germany. 

Unhappily, to solve the present problems, 
which are, above all, technical, the best intentions, 
or even the most genuine natural intelligence, are 
insufficient. It is necessary to know how, and one 
cannot know how without having learned. The 
Allied Socialists who have placed themselves in 
the spotlight have shown themselves to be, gen- 
erally speaking, utopists, entirely ignorant of 
Germany, of the German mind, of geography, 
ethnography, and political economy, pinning 
their faith, before all else, to formulas, and know- 
ing even less than the official diplomats of the 
technique of the multifold problems imposed by 
war and peace. As the anti-Prussian German, 
Dr. Rosemeier, has stated it so fairly in the New 
York Times, these idealists, by reason of their 
radical failure to grasp the inflexible facts, are 
doing as much harm to the world in general as the 
Russian extremists and their German agents. 

It is undeniable that Berlin has found it easy 
to profit by the state of mind of the idealistic 
Socialists of the Entente by causing its own So- 
cial Democrats to put forth the soi-disant ' demo- 
cratic' peace formulas, which for some months 
past have been infecting the Allied countries with 
ideas that are most pernicious because they are 

99 



PA N - GER MAN Y 



impossible of realization. Despite the efforts of 
realist Socialists, men like Plekhanoff, Kropot- 
kin, Guesde, Compere-Morel, Gompers, and their 
like, the Stockholm lure, notwithstanding its clum- 
siness, has helped powerfully to lead Russia to 
the brink of the abyss, and hence to prolong the 
war and the sacrifices of the Allies. In France 
and England a few Socialists have been so gen- 
uinely insane as to say that the occupations of 
territory by Germany are of slight importance; 
that we can begin to think about peace ; that Ger- 
many is already conquered morally, and so forth. 
In view of such results, due to the astounding 
credulity of the idealistic Socialists of the Entente, 
it is quite natural that Germany should pursue 
her so-called 'pacifist' manoeuvres. 

Late in 191 6, the Frankfort Gazette advised its 
readers of the spirit in which these intrigues were 
to be conducted by Berlin. 'The point of view 
is as follows: to put forward precise demands in 
the East, and in the West to negotiate on bases 
that may he modified. Negotiation is not synony- 
mous with renunciation.'' 

This last sentence summarizes the whole of 
German tactics. All the proposals of Berlin have 
but a single object: to deceive and sow discord 
among the Allies by means of negotiations which 
would be followed by non-execution of the terms 
agreed upon, Germany retaining the essential 
positions of to-day's war-map which would as- 

100 



THE DISEASE AND CURE 

sure her, strategically and economically, the domi- 
nation of Europe and the world. 

Now, it is an astounding fact that the warnings 
given by the Germans themselves — the occupa- 
tion of more than 500,000 square kilometres by 
the Kaiser's troops, the burglarizing of Austria- 
Hungary, Bulgaria, and Turkey by the govern- 
ment of Berlin — have not yet availed to prevent 
a considerable proportion of the Allies from con- 
tinuing to be enormously deceived. At the very 
moment when the German General Staff is 
strengthening the fortifications of Belgium, es- 
pecially about Antwerp, there are those among 
the Allies who seriously believe that, by opening 
negotiations, they will succeed in inducing Ger- 
many to evacuate that ill-fated country and to re- 
pair the immense damage that she has inflicted 
on her. 

There are those who wonder what the objects 
of the war on Germany's part can be, when the 
occupations of territory by Germany, correspond- 
ing exactly to the Pangermanist scheme dating 
back twenty- two years, make these objects as 
clear as day. 

There are those who attach importance to such 
declarations as the German Chancellor may 
choose to make, when every day that passes forces 
us to take note of monumental and never-ending 
German lies and of the unwearying duplicity of 
Berlin. 

lOI 



PA N - GERM A N Y 



There are those who are willing to listen to 
talk about a peace by negotiation, when the facts 
prove that Germany respects no agreement, that 
a treaty signed by Berlin is of no value, and that, 
furthermore, it is the Germans themselves who 
so declare. At the very outbreak of the war Maxi- 
milian Harden said, 'A single principle counts — 
Force.' And the Frankfort Gazette printed these 
words : ' Law has ceased to exist. Force alone reigns, 
and we still have forces at our disposal. ' To Mr. 
Gerard, United States Ambassador to Germany, 
the Grand Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin said, 
^We snap our fingers at treaties.' 

After such facts and such declarations, the 
persistent credulity of a certain fraction of the 
Allies is a profoundly distressing thing, for which 
the remedy must be found in a popular documen- 
tary propaganda, thoroughly and powerfully pre- 
pared. 

The pacifist German intrigues are manifest 
enough. We can particularize six leading exam- 
ples, employed by Berlin, either separately or in 
combination. 

Ill 

THE SIX LEADING PACIFIST GERMAN INTRIGUES 

I. A separate peace between Germany and one of 
the Entente Allies. The Alsace-Lorraine coup 

It is evident that the defection of one of the 
principal Allies would inevitably place all the 

102 



THE DISEASE AND CURE 

others in a situation infinitely more difficult for 
continuing the struggle. If we assume such a 
defection, the Germans might well hope to nego- 
tiate concerning peace on the basis of their pres- 
ent conquests. 

That is why they have multiplied proposals for 
a separate peace with the Russians. At Berlin 
they are especially apprehensive of a continuance 
of the war by Russia because of the inexhaustible 
reserves of men possessed by the former Empire of 
the Tsars. The time will probably come when 
they will attempt also to lure Italy from the coali- 
tion by offering her the Trentino, and if necessary, 
Trieste, at i\ustria's expense, this last-named ces- 
sion, however, being destined, in the German plan, 
to be temporary only. 

The desire to break up the coalition at any 
cost is so intense among the Germans, that we 
must anticipate that, at the psychological mo- 
ment, they will even go so far as to offer to restore 
Alsace-Lorraine to France. As for the sincerity of 
such an offer, these words of Maximilian Harden, 
written early in 191 6, enable us to estimate it: — 

*If people think in France that the reestab- 
lishment of peace is possible only through the 
restitution of Alsace-Lorraine, and if necessity 
compels us to sign such a peace, the seventy millions 
of Germans will soon tear it up. ' 

Moreover, nothing would be less difficult for 
Germany, thanks to the effective forces of Cen- 

103 



PA N - GERM A N Y 



tral Pan-Germany, than to seize Alsace-Lorraine 
again, very shortly, having given it up momen- 
tarily as a tactical manoeuvre. 

2. A separate peace between Turkey, Bulgaria, or 
Austria-Hungary, and the Entente 

A particularly astute manoeuvre on the part of 
Berlin consists in favoring, under the rose, not 
perhaps a formally executed separate peace, but, 
at least (as has already taken place) , semi-official 
negotiations for a separate peace between her 
own allies named above and the Entente. 

The particular profit of this sort of manoeuvre 
in relation to the definitive consummation of the 
Hamburg-Persian Gulf scheme, is readily seen if 
we imagine the Allies signing a treaty of peace 
with Turkey, for instance. In such a hypothesis 
the Allies could treat only with the liegemen of 
Berlin at Constantinople, for all the other Turk- 
ish parties having any political importance what- 
soever have been suppressed. Now, if the Allies 
should treat with the Ottoman government, reek- 
ing with the blood of a million Armenians, Greeks, 
and Arabs, massacred en masse as anti-Germans 
and friends of the Entente, the following results 
would follow from this negotiation: the Entente, 
agreeing not to punish the unheard-of crimes com- 
mitted in Turkey, would renounce its moral plat- 
form : it could no longer claim to be fighting in the 
name of civilization. The Turkish government, 

104 



THE DISEASE AND CURE 

which is notoriously composed of assassins, would 
be officially recognized; and thus the self-same 
group of men who sold the Ottoman Empire to 
Germany would be confirmed in power — the 
group whose leader, Talaat Pasha, declared in the 
Ottoman Chamber in February, 191 7, 'We are 
allied to the Central Powers for life and death!' 
The control by Germany of the Dardanelles, a 
strategic position of vast and world-wide impor- 
tance, guarded by her accomplices, would be con- 
firmed; the numerous conventions signed at Ber- 
lin in January, 1917, which effectively establish 
the most unrestricted German protectorate over 
the whole of Turkey, would accomplish their full 
effect during a Pan-German peace. 

The Bulgarian intrigues for a so-called separate 
peace with the Allies have been at least as numer- 
ous as those of the Turks of the same nature. In 
reality, the Bulgarian agents who were sent to 
Switzerland to inveigle certain semi-official agents 
of the Entente into negotiations, were there by 
arrangement with Berlin for the purpose of sound- 
ing the Allies, in order to determine to what de- 
gree they were weary of the war. The Bulgarians 
have never been really disposed to conclude peace 
with the Entente based on compromise upon 
equitable conditions. They desire a peace which 
will assure them immense acquisitions of territory 
at the expense of the Greeks, the Roumanians, 
and, especially, the Serbians, for at Sofia they 

105 



PA N-GERMA N Y 



crave, above all things, direct geographical con- 
tact with Hungary. Thus the great AlHed Powers 
could treat with the Bulgarians only by being 
guilty of the monstrous infamy of sacrificing their 
small Balkan allies, and of assenting to a terri- 
torial arrangement which would permit Bulgaria 
to continue to be the Pangermanist bridge be- 
tween Hungary and Turkey over the dead body 
of Serbia — an indispensable element in the func- 
tioning of the Hamburg-Persian Gulf scheme, 
and hence of Central Pan-Germany. 

Now, this is precisely the one substantial re- 
sult of the war to which Bulgaria clings above all 
else. So it is that a peace by negotiation — in 
reality a peace of lassitude — between the Allies 
and Bulgaria, would simply give sanction to this 
state of affairs. 

In the same way, such a peace with Austria- 
Hungary could but give definitive shape to the 
Hamburg-Persian Gulf scheme. From the finan- 
cial and military standpoint, the monarchy of 
the Hapsburgs, considered as a state, is to-day 
absolutely subservient to Germany. The reign- 
ing Hapsburg, whatever his private sentiments, 
can no longer do anything without the consent of 
the Hohenzollern. Any treaty of peace signed by 
Vienna would be, practically, only a treaty of 
which the conditions were authorized by Berlin. 
There must be no illusion. Nothing less than the 
decisive victory of the Allies will avail to make 

1 06 



THE DISEASE AND CURE 

Germany loosen her grip upon Austria-Hungary, 
for that grip is to Germany the substantial result of 
the war. In truth it is that grip which, by its 
geographic, mihtary, and economic consequences, 
assures BerHn the domination of the Balkans, and 
of the East, hence of Central Pan-Germany, hence 
of Hamburg-Persian Gulf, and the vast conse- 
quences which derive therefrom. 

Let us make up our minds, therefore, that all 
the feelers toward a separate peace with Turkey, 
Bulgaria, and Austria-Hungary, which have been 
put forth and which will hereafter be put forth, 
have been and will be simply manoeuvres aimed at a 
so-called peace by negotiation, which would cloak, 
not simply a German, but a Pan-German peace. 

3. The democratization of Germany 

Certain Allied groups having apparently made 
up their minds that the ' democratization ' of Ger- 
many would suffice to put an end automatically 
to Prussian militarism and to German imperial- 
ism, it was concluded at Berlin that a consider- 
able number, at least, of their adversaries, being 
weary of the war, might be willing to content 
themselves with a merely formal satisfaction of 
their demands, in order to have an ostensibly 
honorable excuse for bringing it to an end. That 
is why, with the aim of leading the Allies off the 
scent and inducing them to enter into negotia- 
tions, Berlin devoted herself during the first six 

107 



PA N-GERM A N Y 



months of 19 17, with increasing energy, to the 
farce called 'the democratization of Germany.' 
Meanwhile the most bigoted Pangermanists put 
the mute on their demands. They ceased to utter 
the words 'annexations' or 'war-indemnities.' 
They talked of nothing but 'special political ar- 
rangements ' — a phrase which in their minds led 
to the same result but had the advantage of not 
embarrassing the peace-at-any-price men in the 
Allied countries. The device of democratization 
of Germany was complementary to the Stock- 
holm trick, which, as we know, was intended to 
convince the Russian Socialists that Russia had 
no further advantage to expect from continuing 
the war, since Germany in her turn, was about to 
enter in all seriousness upon the path of democ- 
racy — and so forth. 

We must acknowledge that many among the 
Allied peoples allowed themselves to be ensnared 
for the moment by this manoeuvre, and honestly 
believed that Germany was about to reform, of 
her own motion and radically. But when the 
German tactics had achieved the immense result 
of setting anarchy loose in Russia, — a state of 
affairs which was instantly made the most of in a 
military sense by the Staff at Berlin, — the farce 
of the democratization of Germany was aban- 
doned. Von Bethmann-Hollweg was sacrificed to 
the necessity of dropping a scheme which he had 
managed, and Michaelis — Hindenburg's man, 

108 



THE DISEASE AND CURE 

and therefore the man of the Prussian military 
party and of the Pangermanists — succeeded him. 

As a matter of fact, the Germans have, for all 
time, had such an inveterate penchant for rapine 
that they are quite capable of setting up a great 
military republic and submitting readily enough 
to Prussian discipline, with a view to starting 
afresh upon wars for plunder. 

We must bear this truth constantly in mind: 
if the Hohenzollerns have succeeded, in accord- 
ance w4th Mirabeau's epigram, in making war 
'the national industry,' it is because, ever since 
the dawn of history, the Germans have always 
subordinated everything to their passion for lu- 
crative wars. The same is true of them to-day. 
Especially in the last twenty years the secret 
propaganda of the Berlin government has con- 
vinced the masses that the creation of Pan-Ger- 
many will assure them immense material benefits. 
It is because this conviction is so firmly rooted 
among them that substantially the entire body 
of Socialist workingmen are serving their Kaiser 
without flinching, and are willing to endure the 
horrors of the present conflict so long as it may 
be necessary and so long as they are not conquered 
in the field. 

4. Peace through the International 

This is another of the tricks conceived at Ber- 
lin. In reality the International, having always 

109 



PA N -GERM A N Y 



followed the direction of the German Marxists, 
has been the chief means employed for thirty 
years to deceive the Socialists of the countries now 
in alliance against Germany by inducing them 
to believe that war, thanks to the International 
alone, could never again break out. In a report 
on 'the international relations of the German 
workingmen's unions' (191 4), the Imperial Bu- 
reau of Statistics was able to proclaim as an un- 
deniable truth: ' In all the international organiza- 
tions German influence predominates.' 

The conference at Stockholm, initiated by Ger- 
man agents, and that at Berne, upon which they 
are now at work, are steps which German union- 
ism is taking to reestablish over the workingmen 
of all lands the German influence, which has van- 
ished since the war began. The idea now is to 
force the proletariat of the whole world inta sub- 
jection to the guiding hand of Germany. The ob- 
ject oflicially avowed is to rehabilitate the Inter- 
national in the interest of democracy. In reality, 
it is proposed, above all else, to replace in the front 
rank the struggle between classes in the Allied 
countries, in order to destroy the sacred unity 
that is indispensable to enable the most divergent 
parties to wage war vigorously against Panger- 
manist Germany. As the Berlin government is 
well aware that it has nothing to fear from its own 
Socialists, the vast majority of whom, even when 
they disown the title of Pangermanists, are parti- 

IIO 



THE DISEASE AND CURE 

sans of Central Pan-Germany, the profit of the 
manoeuvre based on the International would in- 
ure entirely to Germany, who would retain her 
power of moral resistance unimpaired, while the 
Allied states, once mxore in the grip of the bitterest 
social discord, would find their offensive powers 
so diminished by this means that peace would in 
the end be negotiated on the basis of the present 
territorial occupations of Germany. 

5. The armistice trick 

All the schemes hitherto discussed, whether 
employed singly or in combination, are intended, 
first and last, to assist in playing the armistice 
trick on the Allies. This is based upon an astute 
calculation, still founded on the weariness of the 
combatants, which is so easily understood after 
a war as exhausting as that now in progress. At 
Berlin they reason thus — and the reasoning is 
not without force: ' If an armistice is agreed upon, 
the Allied troops will say, "They're talking, so 
peace is coming, and, before long, demobiliza- 
tion." Under these conditions our adversaries 
will undergo a relaxation of their moral fibre. ' 

The Germans would ask nothing more. They 
would enter upon peace negotiations with the fol- 
lowing astute idea. If, hypothetically, the Allies 
should make the enormous blunder of discussing 
terms of peace on bases so craftily devised, Ger- 
many, being still intrenched behind her fronts 

III 



PA N-GERMA N Y 



which had been made almost impregnable, would 
end by saying, ' I am not in accord with you. After 
all is said, you cannot demand that I evacuate 
territory from which you are powerless to expel 
me. If you are not satisfied, go on with the war.' 
Inasmuch as, during the negotiations, every- 
thing essential would have been done by German 
agents to accentuate the moral relaxation of the 
country which was most exhausted by the conflict, 
as they succeeded in doing in Russia in the first 
months of the Revolution, the immense military 
machine of the Entente could not again be set in 
motion in all its parts. The result would be the 
breaking asunder of the anti-German coalition, 
and, finally, the conclusion of peace substantially 
on the basis of existing conquests. Thus Berlin's 
object would be attained. 

6. The ^status quo ante' trick 

The last of the German schemes, and the most 
dangerous of all, is that concealed under the for- 
mula, ' No annexations or indemnities ' — a for- 
midable trap, which, as I have pointed out in 
earlier chapters, has for its object to confirm 
Germany in the possession of the gigantic advan- 
tages which she has derived from the war, and 
which would assure her the domination of the 
world, leaving the Allies with their huge war- 
losses, whose inevitable economic after-effects 
would suffice to reduce them to a state of absolute 
servitude with respect to Berlin. 



CHAPTER VII 

The Best Way to Crush Pan-Germany 

I 

THE UNITED STATES AND THE VASSALS OF BERLIN 

In the wholly novel plan which I am about to 
set forth, the United States may play a prepon- 
derating and decisive part; but by way of pre- 
amble I must call attention to the fact that the 
United States is not, in my judgment, as I write 
these lines, in a position to give its full effective 
assistance in the conflict, because it is not officially 
and wholeheartedly at war with Austria-Hun- 
gary, Bulgaria, and Turkey — states in thrall to 
Berlin and constituent parts of Pan-Germany. 
This situation is, I am fully convinced, unfavor- 
able to the interests of the Allies, and it paralyzes 
American action, for these reasons. 

As a matter of fact, Germany can no longer 
carry on the war against the Entente save by 
virtue of the troops and resources which are 
placed at her disposal by Austria-Hungary, Bul- 
garia, and Turkey. If the Allies wish to conquer 
Germany, their chief adversary, it is necessary 
that they understand that they must first of all 
deprive Prussian militarism of the support — 
apparently secondary, but really essential —-' 

113 



PA N-GERM A N Y 



which it receives from its allied vassals. It is, 
furthermore, eminently desirable that it should be 
recognized in the United States that Turkish, 
Bulgar, Magyar, and Austrian imperialism are 
bases of Prussian imperialism, and that in order 
to establish a lasting peace, the disappearance of 
these secondary imperialisms is as necessary as 
that of Prussian imperialism itself. Moreover, 
the fact that Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria, and 
Turkey are not officially at war with the United 
States enables Berlin to maintain connections in 
America of which we may be sure that she avails 
herself to the utmost. 

This situation is propitious also for that Ger- 
man manoeuvre which consists in making people 
think that a separate peace is possible between 
Turkey, or Bulgaria, or Austria-Hungary on the 
one side and the powers of the Entente on the 
other. However, as the game to be played is com- 
plicated and difficult, good sense suggests that we 
proceed from the simple to the complex, and 
hence that we strike the enemy first of all in his 
most vulnerable part. Now, as we shall see, it is 
mainly in the territory of the three vassals of 
Germany that the new plan which I am about to 
set forth can be carried out in the first instance, 
without, however, causing any prejudice — far, 
far from it, — to the invaluable assistance which 
the Americans are preparing to bring to the Allies 
pn th^ Western front. For all these reasons, it 



114 



THE DISEASE AND CURE 

seems desirable that American public opinion 
should admit the imperious necessity of a situation 
absolutely unequivocal with regard to the govern- 
ments of Constantinople, Sofia, Vienna, and Bud- 
apest, which are vassals of Berlin and by that 
same token substantial pillars of Pan-Germany. 

II 

DESTRUCTION OF PAN-GERMANY BY INTERNAL 
EXPLOSION 

I believe that I have demonstrated, in earlier 
chapters of this book that, because of the advan- 
tages, economic and military, which the existence 
of Central Pan-Germany guarantees to Germany 
for both present and future, the essential, vital 
problem that the Allies have to solve — a problem 
which sums up all the others — is, how to destroy 
this Central Pan-Germany. 

It is infinitely easier to destroy than is gener- 
ally supposed among the Allies, because it con- 
tains potent sources of dissolution. The Allied 
leaders seem not to have bestowed upon this situ- 
ation the extremely careful attention which it de- 
serves. In any event, down to the present time 
they have not sought to take advantage of a state 
of affairs which is eminently favorable to them. 

To understand this situation, and how it may 
be utilized at once, we must set out from the fol- 
lowing starting-point. Of about 176,000,000 

115 



PA N-GERM A N Y 



inhabitants of Pan-Germany in 191 7, about 
73,000,000 Germans, with the backing of only 
21,000,000 vassals, — Magyars, Bulgars, Turks, 
— have to-day reduced to slavery the immense 
number of 82,000,000 allied subjects — Slavs, 
Latins, or Semites, belonging to thirteen different 
nationalities, all of whom desire the victory of the 
Entente, since that alone will assure their libera- 
tion. In addition, a considerable portion of Ger- 
many's vassals would, under certain conditions, 
gladly throw off the yoke of Berlin. 

Among the 176,000,000 people of Pan-Ger- 
many we distinguish the following three groups. 

Group I. Slaves of the Germans or of their vas- 
sals capable of immediate action favorable to the 
Entente — say, 63,000,000, made up as follows: — 

(a) In Turkey, — 

Arabs 8,000,000 

Generally speaking the Arabs detest the Turks. 
A portion of them have risen in revolt in Arabia, 
under the leadership of the King of Hedjaz. 

(b) In Central Europe, — 
Polish-Lithuanians 22,000,000 
Ruthenians 5,500,000 
Czechs 8,500,000 
Jugo-Slavs 11,000,000 
Roumanians 8,000,000 

55,000,000 
116 



THE DISEASE AND CURE 

There are, then, in Central Europe alone, 55,- 
000,000 people determinedly hostile to German- 
ism, forming an enormous, favorably grouped 
mass, occupying a vast territory, commanding a 
part of the German lines of communication, and 
comparatively far from the fronts where the 
bulk of the German military forces is. 

Moreover, at the present crisis, these 55,000,- 
000 human beings, subjected to the most heart- 
less German and Bulgarian terrorism, are coming 
to understand better and better that the only 
means of escape from a ghastly slavery, from 
which there is no appeal, is to contribute at the 
earliest possible moment to the victory of the 
Entente. The insurrectionary commotions that 
have already taken place in Poland, Bohemia, 
and Transylvania, prove what a limitless devel- 
opment these outbreaks might take on if the Allies 
should do what they ought to do to meet this 
psychological condition. It is clear that, if these 
55,000,000 slaves of Central Europe should re- 
volt in increasing numbers, this result would 
follow first of all: the default of Russia would be 
supplied. Indeed, the Germans, being harassed 
in rear of their Eastern fronts, would be consider- 
ably impeded in their military operations and in 
their communications. Under such conditions 
the attacks of the Allies would have much more 
chance of success than they have to-day. 



117 



PAN- GERM A N Y 



Group 2. SlavCvS of the Germans or of their vas- 
sals, who cannot stir to-day, being too near the 
military fronts, but whose action might follow 
that of the first group — nearly 16,000,000, made 
up as follows : — 

(a) In Turkey, — 
Ottoman Greeks 2,000,000 

Armenians 1,000,000 



3,000,000 



(&) On the Western front, — 

French 3,000,000 

Belgians 7,500,000 

Alsatians and Lorrainers 1,500,000 

Italians 800,000 



12,800,000 



Group J. Vassals of Germany, possible rebels 
against the yoke of Berlin after the uprising of 
the first group — about 9,000,000. 

Of 10,000,000 Magyars, there are — a fact not 
generally known among the Allies — 9,000,000 
poor agricultural laborers cynically exploited by 
one million nobles, priests, and officials. These 
9,000,000 Magyar proletarians are exceedingly 
desirous of peace. As they did not want the war, 
they detest those who forced it on them. They 
would be quite capable of revolting at the last 
moment against their feudal exploiters, if the 

118 



THE DISEASE AND CURE 

Allies, estimating accurately the shocking social 
conditions of these poor Magyars, were able to 
assure them that the victory of the Entente would 
put an end to the agrarian and feudal system 
under which they suffer. 

Is not this a state of affairs eminently favorable 
to the interests of the Allies? Would not the Ger- 
mans in our place have turned it to their utmost 
advantage long ago? Does not common sense tell 
us that if, in view of the pressure on their bat- 
tle fronts, the Allies knew enough to do what is 
necessary to induce the successive revolts of the 
three groups whose existence we have pointed out, 
a potent internal element in the downfall of Pan- 
Germany would become more and more potent, 
adding its effects to the efforts which the Allies 
have confined themselves thus far to putting 
forth on the extreme outer circumference of Pan- 
Germany? 

Let us inquire how this assistance of the 88,000,- 
000 persons confined in Pan-Germany in their 
own despite can be obtained and made really 
effective. 

Let us start with an indisputable fact. The 
immense results which the German propaganda 
has achieved in barely five months in boundless 
Russia, with her 182,000,000 inhabitants, where 
it has brought about, in Siberia as well as in Eu- 
rope, separatist movements which, for the most 
part, — I speak of them because I have traveled 

119 



PA N -GERM A N Y 



and studied much in Russia, — would never have 
taken place but for their artificial agitation, — 
these results constitute, beyond dispute, a strik- 
ing demonstration of what the Allies might do if 
they should exert themselves to act upon races 
radically anti-Boche, held captive against their 
will in Pan-Germany. Assuredly, in the matter 
of propaganda, the Allies are very far from being 
as well equipped as the Germans and from know- 
ing how to go about it as they do. But the Ger- 
mans and their vassals are so profoundly detested 
by the people whom they are oppressing in Pan- 
Germany; these people understand so fully that 
the remnant of their liberty is threatened in the 
most uncompromising way; they are so clearly 
aware that they can free themselves from the 
German-Turkish-Magyar yoke only as a result 
of this war and of the decisive victory of the En- 
tente, that they realize more clearly every day 
that their motto must be, ' Now or never. ' 

Considering this state of mind, so favorable to 
the Allies, a propaganda on the part of the En- 
tente, even if prepared with only moderate skill, 
would speedily obtain very great results. Fur- 
thermore, the desperate efforts which Austria- 
Hungary, at the instigation of Berlin and with 
the backing of the Stockholmists and the Pope, 
was making to conclude peace before its threat- 
ening internal explosion, show how precarious 
German hegemony in Central Europe still is. 

120 



THE DISEASE AND CURE 

The Austro-Boches are so afraid of the extension 
of the local disturbances which have already 
taken place in Poland and Bohemia, that they 
have not yet dared to repress them root and 
branch. Those wretches, to fortify themselves 
against these anti-German popular commotions, 
resort to famine. At the present moment, not- 
ably in the Jugo-Slav districts and in Bohemia, 
the Austro-Germans are removing the greatest 
possible quantity of provisions in order to hold 
the people in check by hunger. But this hateful 
expedient itself combines with all the rest to con- 
vince these martyrized peoples of the urgent ne- 
cessity of rising in revolt if they prefer not to be 
half annihilated like the Serbs. 

To make sure of the constant spread and cer- 
tain effectiveness of the latent troubles of the 
oppressed Slavs and Latins of Central Europe, 
there is need on the part of the Allies, first of moral 
suasion, then of material assistance. 

To understand the necessity and the usefulness 
of the first, it must be said that, despite all the 
precautions taken by the Austro-Boche authori- 
ties, the declarations of the Entente in behalf of 
the oppressed peoples of Central Europe become 
known to these latter comparatively soon, and 
that these declarations help greatly to sustain 
their morale. For example. President Wilson's 
message of January 22, 19 17, in which he urged 
the independence and unification of Poland, and 

121 



PA N-GERM A N Y 



his 'Flag Day' speech, on June 15, in which he set 
forth the great and intolerable peril of the Ham- 
burg-Persian Gulf scheme, manifestly strength- 
ened the determination of the Poles, the Czechs, 
and the Jugo-Slavs to free themselves at whatever 
cost from the fatal yoke of Vienna and Berlin. 
In addition, the constantly increasing power of 
the aeroplane enables the Allies to spread impor- 
tant communications broadcast over enemy terri- 
tory. 

First of all, it is essential that the three races 
which, by reason of their geographical situation 
and their ethnographical characteristics are in- 
dispensable in any reconstitution of Central Eu- 
rope based on the principle of nationalities, and 
who consequently have a leading part to play in 
the centre of the Pan-Germany of to-day, should 
be, one and all, absolutely convinced that the vic- 
tory of the Entente will make certain their com- 
plete independence. The Poles have received 
this assurance on divers occasions, notably from 
President Wilson, and very recently from M. 
Ribot, commemorating in a dispatch to the 
Polish Congress at Moscow 'the reconstitution 
of the independence and unity of all the Polish 
territories to the shores of the Baltic. ' But the 
11,000,000 Jugo-Slavs and the 8,500,000 Czechs 
have not yet received from the leaders of the En- 
tente sufficiently explicit and repeated assurances. 

There are two reasons why this is so. In the 

122 



THE DISEASE AND CURE 

first place, the absolutely chimerical hope of 
separating Austria-Hungary from Germany has 
obsessed, down to a very recent date, certain 
exalted personages of the Entente, who, having 
never had an opportunity to study on the spot 
the latest developments in Austria, still believe 
in the old classic formula, ' If Austria did not ex- 
ist, we should have to create it.' In the second 
place, certain other personages of the Entente in- 
cline to the belief that, in order to obtain a swift 
victory, the problem of Central Europe is a prob- 
lem to be avoided. Now, as to this point, the few 
men who unquestionably know Austria well — 
for example, the Frenchmen Louis Leger, Ernest 
Denis, M. Haumant, Auguste Gauvain, and 
others, and the Englishmen, Sir Arthur Evans, 
Seton- Watson, Wickham Steed, and others — 
are unanimous in being as completely convinced 
as I myself am that the breaking-up of the mon- 
archy of the Hapsburgs is indispensable to the es- 
tablishment of a lasting peace — and further- 
more, such a breaking-up as a result of the revolt 
of the oppressed peoples is one of the most power- 
ful instruments in the hands of the Entente to 
bring the war to a victorious close. 

In fact, there are certain quasi-mechanical 
laws which should guide in the reconstruction of 
a Europe that can endure. Now, without a free 
Bohemia and Jugo-Slavia it is impossible — im- 
possible, I insist — that Poland should be really 

123 



PA N'GERMA N Y 



free, that Serbia and Roumania should be re- 
stored, that Russia should be released from the 
grip of Germany, that Alsace-Lorraine should 
be restored permanently to France, that Italy 
should be protected from German domination in 
the Adriatic, in the Balkans, and in Turkey, that 
the United States should be warranted against 
the world-wide results of the Hamburg-Persian 
Gulf enterprise. Bohemia is the central point of 
the whole. With its circle of mountains, it is the 
indispensable keystone of the European edifice, 
rebuilt upon the basis of the principle of nation- 
alities. Whosoever is master of Bohemia is mas- 
ter of Europe. It must be, therefore, that liberty 
shall be master of Bohemia. 

On the other hand, it is undeniable that the 
successive uprisings of 8,500,000 Czechs and 
11,000,000 Jugo-Slavs, taking place concurrently 
with that of 22,000,000 Poles, is absolutely in line 
with the present military interests of the En- 
tente. Therefore, for the Allies to assume an at- 
titude of reserve toward the Czechs and Jugo- 
Slavs is as contrary to the democratic principles 
they invoke as to their most urgent strategic in- 
terests. But this mistake has been frequently 
made, solely because the exceptional importance 
of Bohemia has not yet been fully grasped. Mr. 
Asquith, in his speech of September 26 last, 
furnishes an example of this regrettable reserve 
with respect to the Czechs — a reserve which is 

124 ' 



THE DISEASE AND CURE 

diminishing, no doubt, but which still exists. He 
said : — 

* If we turn to Central and Eastern Europe, we 
see purely artificial territorial arrangements, 
which are repugnant to the wishes and interests of 
the populations directly concerned, and which, 
so long as they remain unchanged, will constitute 
a field fertile in new wars. There are, first, the 
claims of Roumania and Italy, so long overdue; 
there is heroic Serbia, which not only must be re- 
stored to her home, but which is entitled to more 
room in which to expand nationally; and there is 
Poland. The position of Greece and the South 
Slavs must not be forgotten.' 

Thus, while Mr. Asquith manifests the best in- 
tentions toward the oppressed peoples of Central 
Europe, he does not even mention the Czechs, 
that is, Bohemia. Now, in reality, all the prom- 
ises that the Entente can make concerning Po- 
land, Serbia, Roumania, and Italy, are not cap- 
able of lasting fulfillment unless Bohemia is set 
free, for Bohemia dominates all Central Europe. 
Furthermore, Mr. Asquith's silence as to the fate 
of Bohemia may be a legitimate cause of uneasi- 
ness to the Czechs, who are now doing the im- 
possible to contend with Germanism, despite the 
shocking terrorism which lies so heavy upon them. 
So we may say, that Mr. Asquith would have serv- 
ed the interest of the Entente more effectively if 
he had emphatically named Bohemia and the 

125 



PA N -GERM A N Y 



Czechs who are so much in need of being sup- 
ported and encouraged by the Allies, whom they 
regard as their liberators. 

The misconceptions that have led to the ignor- 
ing of the claims of the Central European Slavs, 
and of their extreme importance in the solution 
of the war-problem, will soon prove themselves 
an even heavier load to carry than those commit- 
ted in Bulgaria and Greece. To put an end to 
these vagaries, it is necessary that henceforth 
the leaders of the Entente should earnestly en- 
courage, at least the Poles, Czechs, and Jugo- 
slavs — that is to say, about 42,000,000 slaves of 
Berlin in Central Europe. The encouragement of 
these peoples as a single body is indispensable, for, 
although the Boches are able to control the local 
and, so to say, individual insurrectionary move- 
ments, on the contrary, because of the vast area 
which a general insurrection of the 42,000,000 
would involve, its repression by the Austro- 
Boches would be practically impossible. The ex- 
ample of a successful general uprising would cer- 
tainly induce a similar movement by the balance 
of the 88,000,000 human beings who are vitally 
interested in the destruction of Pan-Germany. 
To bring about this result, then, the first essential 
thing to be done is for the leaders of the Entente 
to put forth a most unequivocal declaration, giv- 
ing the Poles, Czechs, and Jugo-Slavs assurance 
that the victory of the Entente will make certain 

126 



THE DISEASE AND CURE 

their complete liberation. It is impossible to see 
what there is to hinder such a declaration. Its 
effects would soon be discerned if it were enthusi- 
astically supported by the Allied press and by the 
Allied Socialists, who, let us hope, will finally 
realize that, while it is impossible to bring about 
a revolution against Prussian militarism in Ger- 
many, it can very easily be effected in Austria- 
Hungary. 

But, some one will say, a revolution is not pos- 
sible without material resources. Naturally, I 
shall discuss this point only so far as the interests 
of the Entente will allow me to do it publicly. 
In the first place I will call attention to the fact 
that, by reason of the immensity of the territory 
they occupy, simple passive resistance on the 
part of the oppressed races of Central Europe, 
provided that it is offered in concert and accom- 
panied by certain essays in the way of sabotage 
and strikes, which are easy enough to practice 
without any outside assistance, would create al- 
most inextricable difficulties for the Austro-Ger- 
mans. 

But there is something much better to be done. 
At first sight, it seems very difficult for the Allies 
to bear effective material aid to the oppressed peo- 
ples of Pan-Germany, because they are surround- 
ed by impregnable military lines. In fact, by com- 
bining the results of the tremendous development 
of the aviation branch made possible by the ad- 

127 



PA N-GERM A N Y 



hesion of the United States, with certain technical 
resources which are available, the Entente can, 
comparatively quickly and easily, supply the 
Poles and the rest with material assistance which 
would prove extraordinarily efficacious. 

I am not writing carelessly. I have studied for 
twenty years these down -trodden races and the 
countries in which they live. I know about the 
material resources to which I refer. If I do not 
describe them more explicitly, it is because no 
one has yet thought of employing them, and in 
such matters silence is a bounden duty. But I 
am, of course, at the disposition of the American 
authorities if they should wish to know about the 
resources in question, and to study them seriously. 
I am absolutely convinced that, if employed 
with due method, determinedly, and scientifically, 
in accordance with a special technique, these re- 
sources, after a comparatively simple prepara- 
tion, — much less in any event than those which 
have been made in other enterprises, — would 
lead to very important results which would contri- 
bute materially to the final decision. ^ 

To sum up — in Central Europe, through the 
liberation, preceded by the legitimate and neces- 
sary revolution, of its martyred peoples, are found 

^ To the editor, M. Cheradame has written with less reserve on 
this vital subject; but it seems best to put in print at this time no 
more than the suggestion indicated. — The Editor of the Atlantic 
Monthly. 

128 



TBE DISEASE AND CURE 



in conjunction: {a) the means of making good the 
default of Russia; {b) the basis of a new and de- 
cisive conclusion of the war; (c) the possibility of 
destroying Central Pan-Germany; {d) the conse- 
quent wiping out of the immense advantages from 
the war which the mere existence of Pan-Ger- 
many assures to Germany; and {e) the elements 
of a lasting peace upon terms indisputably right- 
eous and strictly in accordance with the princi- 
ples of justice invoked by the Entente. 




ANNOUNCEMENT OF OTHER VOLUMES 
DEALING WITH THE GREAT WAR 

AND PUBLISHED BY 

THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY PRESS 

THREE PARK STREET, BOSTON, MASS. 

WILL BE FOUND ON THE 

FOLLOWING PAGES 



THE WAR AND THE SPIRIT OF YOUTH 



This book is a spiritual interpretation of the suffering and sac- 
rifice of the World War, expressed in a group of three papers of 
kindred significance, yet written from three different points of 
view by a Frenchman, an EngHshman, and an American. The 
volume includes: 

Young Soldiers of France, By Maurice Barres. 

JuvENTUS Christi, By Anne C. E. Allinson. 

The Soul's Experience, By Sir Francis Younghusband. 

Each writer is seeking in the dreadful welter of war some com- 
mon revelation of spiritual comfort and advance. Is the agony of 
these years meaningless and wanton? Is the heartsickening 
struggle brutal and brutalizing, and nothing more? Each, in his 
or her own way, finds an answer. 

One, a questioner by temperament, has come to see the regen- 
eration of human life in the miracle which the war has worked in 
the younger generation. Another, by profession a soldier, found 
a new and vivid faith born of physical impotence and pain. The 
third, an American woman, has come to her new belief from far 
distant fields of the imagination. All three unite in confidence 
that the generation now culminating in manhood is passing 
through blackness into light brighter than any dawn the world 
has known. 

The spirit of the volume is the spirit of youth, learning in the 
Book of Life, trusting that the best is yet to be, and reading with 
shining eyes to the end. It is the spirit or Leo Latil, a young sol- 
dier of France, who, shortly before his death on the edge of a Ger- 
man trench, wrote to his family, — 

Our sacrifices will be sweet if we win a great and glorious victory, — if there 
shall be more light for the souls of men ; if truth shall come forth more radiant, 
more beloved. 

The War and the Spirit of Youth is an inspiring, heartening 
little volume. It is well printed, handsomely bound, and sells 
postpaid for one dollar. 



THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY PRESS 
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HEADQUARTERS NIGHTS 

By Vernon Kellogg 



When the World War broke out, Vernon Kellogg was Professor 
of Biology at Leland Stanford University. As a man of science, he 
was accustomed to weigh facts calmly and dispassionately. He 
was an admirer of Germany, a neutral, and a pacifist. With the 
hope of relieving human suffering, he went to Europe and became 
special envoy of the Committee for the Relief of Belgium at Ger- 
man General Headquarters and at the headquarters of General 
Von Bissing in Brussels. 

For many months. Professor Kellogg lived with Germany's 
military leaders in the West, worked with them, argued with 
them, learned from their own lips their aims and principles of life. 
He saw the workings of German autocracy among the people it 
had crushed, heard German methods defended by some of the 
ablest men in the Kaiser's empire, tried in vain to understand the 
German point of view. 

"Quite four nights of each seven in the week," he says, "there 
were other staff officers in to dinner, and we debated such trifles 
as German Militarismus, the hate of the world for Germany, 
American munitions for the Allies, submarining and Zeppelining, 
the Kaiser, the German people." 

These "headquarters nights," and the days he spent trying to 
assuage the misery caused by the German military system, 
brought about "the conversion of a pacifist to an ardent sup- 
porter, not of War, but of this war; of fighting this war to a defini- 
tive end — that end to be Germany's conversion to be a good 
Germany or not much of any Germany at all." 

One of the most graphic pictures of the German attitude, the attitude v/hich 
rendered this war inevitable, is contained in Vernon Kellogg's Headquarters 
Nights. It is a convincing, and an evidently truthful, exposition of the shock- 
ing, the unspeakably dreadful, moral and intellectual perversion of character 
which makes Germany at present a menace to the v/hole civilized world. 

Theodore Roosevelt. 

Headquarters Nights is attractively printed and bound in 
cloth. Its price is one dollar postpaid. 



THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY PRESS 
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THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY AND THE 
GREAT WAR 



During 191 8, The Atlantic Monthly will not only 
print a new series of papers by Andre Cheradame, but 
also an extraordinarily comprehensive succession of 
articles dealing with every phase of the military and 
political significance of the Great War. 

Everyone who wishes to keep informed on the issues 
of war and peace, absolutely vital to the world, should 
read these papers as they are published. 

Over and above these Cheradame articles, month 
by month, The Atlantic debates every phase of the 
Great War, in papers ranging from the recital of per- 
sonal adventures by fighting men to statesmanlike 
discussions of policy during and after the war. 

THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY 

35 CENTS A COPY $4.00 A YEAR 

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